Older and Taller
by MaireadOutlander
Summary: Daniel and Rose (OC, not the Rose of the show) have known each other since they were children. Now, as World War II is ending and they are both dealing with new and challenging realities, they need each other's support more than ever. Starts pre-season 1, DanielxPeggy present but not the focus (starts Ch. 6), lots of Angie in later chapters!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 _Song accompaniment: The Visit, Regina Spektor_

Daniel expected Rose to stop and pause, perhaps look at his leg—or lack thereof—for a brief moment, to register some surprise or discomfort, but she didn't. She came bounding down the hospital corridor, onto the ward, and didn't break stride until she was bending down to hug him. She had told him she was coming days before, so he had been prepared and dressed in his uniform, instead of the blue and white pajamas they had issued him and that he wore most days—the itchy wool of the uniform rubbed against the still tender skin on his right leg so he only wore it on special occasions, like seeing the little girl from next door for the first time in three years. She wasn't a little girl anymore, and hadn't been for a while, but this was the first time Daniel had truly noticed. He supposed that watching her grow up over the years had helped him adjust to her age incrementally. After a three year gap, it was all hitting him at once. She looked like a peer now. Almost.

"Hang on," he said. "Let me stand up and greet you properly."

She nodded and backed up. Now she was going to look at him strangely, he knew it. He pushed himself up from the chair slowly, hanging onto the arms for support. Standing on one leg wasn't so hard when you still had two and could use the other one as a counterbalance. Before he lost his right leg, Daniel hadn't realized the important function of a leg even when it was not in use. He felt himself starting to tip to the left and sat back down before he could fall over.

"Thanks for not helping me," he said, leaning forward to try again.

"I'm sorry," Rose said, beginning towards him.

"No," he said quickly. "I meant it. I have to do these things for myself. I appreciate when people don't just assume. When they wait to be asked." Daniel sat down again as he began to lean dangerously to the right. "I am going to need a little help, though."

Rose nodded. "How?" she asked in a shockingly matter-of-fact way.

"If you could just hold my shoulders," Daniel said. "Keep me steady. I can get _up_ on my own. It's making sure I get up without going to the side as well that's the problem."

Rose nodded again and put her hands on either side of his shoulders. Daniel was surprised by the firmness of her grip. With this grip providing balance, he successfully rose to his feet.

"Hi, Rosie," he said, smiling. As he wrapped his arms around her, she slowly let go of the sides of his shoulders and returned the hug, squeezing tightly.

"It's been so long," Daniel said.

"It has," Rose said.

Daniel could feel her nodding as she rested her head on his shoulder. Then he felt himself losing his balance, beginning to fall backward. Rose reacted immediately, moving her hands back to the sides of his shoulders and helping him back into the chair. With this assistance, Daniel was able to lower himself to the seat with something approaching gracefulness. For the first time ever, he felt grateful for the one-legged squats they made him do in physical therapy. When he looked up at Rose, he saw that she was beaming at him. This was not what he had expected, but he supposed his surprise at her behavior was becoming a pattern. He gestured for her to take a seat on the edge of his hospital bed.

"I hope this isn't too weird for you," he said.

"No," she said quickly. "Well, I mean, it is. I'm so sorry that you've had to go through this, Daniel. You look pretty normal, though. I think you probably are normal. Do you feel normal?"

Daniel smiled but shook his head. "Not especially."

"I guess I'll let you tell me, then."

"I feel fine, though, Rosie. I feel really good seeing you."

Rose continued to smile at him. Daniel was waiting for her to tell him off for calling her Rosie, like she had started to when she first began high school and he had come home on college break still calling her that.

"If you think I've gone all soft and am going to let you start calling me Rosie again just because you're back home and we haven't seen each other in ages," she said, as if reading his mind. "You're absolutely right."

Rose beamed at him again and Daniel realized that she must not have been smiling at him consistently or he wouldn't have noticed each time she strapped on a new grin. Now she was beaming and then closing her mouth tightly like she was trying to hide her smile. Then she was beaming again with tears running down her cheeks.

"I'm feeling very emotional right now so don't take advantage of me," she said.

"I won't," Daniel said, feeling water gather in his own eyes. The sight of Rose crying had always made him want to cry too, ever since she was eight and he was twelve and she had run to his house crying that her father was going to kill her mother. His father had telephoned the police and then rushed to Rose's house, leaving Daniel alone with Rose. Rose's father had hit Rose too and she had a split lip that was bleeding down the side of her chin and that she cared nothing about.

"Let me clean that up for you," Daniel had said, but Rose had shaken her head.

"Come on. It won't hurt."

"No."

"Why not?" he had asked.

"Because I'm scared for my mother."

It hadn't really made sense—the idea that Rose couldn't somehow be thinking of her mother and getting taken care of at the same time—but Daniel had accepted it. Maybe it was because he was practically still a kid himself or maybe it was the little girl's emphatic nature. And maybe it was because the little girl was so pitiful looking or maybe it was that his own mother was ill, but, as Daniel watched Rose cry, standing on the rug in the middle of his living room, he had choked back tears too. Rose had even refused to wipe the blood off her face with the back of her hand and Daniel had watched as she let it drip off her chin and onto the rug. He hadn't mopped it up either or done anything to try to stop the blood from creating a stain. It seemed disrespectful somehow and the rug and the stain were still there in his father's house today.

Now Rose was biting her lip so hard, Daniel was worried she might draw blood. He wondered if it was a means to stop herself from crying. If it was, it wasn't working.

"I did all my sad crying about you getting hurt and all that at home before coming here, to get it out of the way. So, these are all happy tears," she said. "There are a lot of them, though."

"That's okay," Daniel said.

"I know it is. I wasn't apologizing. If they were sad tears, I'd be apologizing."

"How would I know the difference?"

"If I'm apologizing, they're sad tears."

"Ah, that makes sense," Daniel said. "So, Rosie I'm glad that college didn't teach you to talk any less."

Rose shook her head. "Disappointed?"

"The opposite."

"You know what college did teach me?" Rose asked, wiping at her eyes. "That men often perceive women as talking much more than they actually do."

"What do you mean by that?"

"They've done studies that when a man and a woman talk almost equal amounts, men report that the woman talked more."

"I don't know if I believe that."

"Well, Daniel, it doesn't matter whether you believe it or not."

Daniel smiled. He could see Rose toughening up in front of him. Soon, he would have to stop calling her Rosie—a habit he had tried to break out of respect for her wishes, but that he still found hard to get rid of.

"I guess college teaches you a lot," he said. "Oh god, Rosie—I mean Rose. You graduated from college. And I missed it. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine."

"I should have at least written."

"You were busy."

Daniel had been in France, preparing for Bastogne, the battle in which he had lost his leg.

"But after that," he said.

"You were still busy."

Daniel appreciated this. After his injury, Daniel spent two months in a French medical zone, before beginning his current stay at the New York VA hospital. Most people who came to visit seemed to look at him like some idle, pajama-clad loafer. They understood of course. He had been through a lot. He was an invalid. He needed to rest. But Daniel didn't do much resting in the hospital. Every morning, at 5:30 am, he got out of bed—a task that used to take considerable effort and was still not easy. Then he sat down in his chair. Then he had physical therapy, which was hard and painful and theoretically helpful. Then, after the exhaustion of a therapy session, he had to make his way back to his chair where he read about the war in the newspaper—the general consensus was that it was going well, but Daniel knew from experience that much could be hidden within the word "well." Sometimes, he even had to go to a second therapy session later in the day. By the evening, he was exhausted. Busy was the perfect word to describe it.

"Still, I should have gotten you something. I'll get you something. A graduation present sometime after I get out."

Rose brushed the suggestion off.

"I want to," Daniel insisted.

"All right, then. I'll be looking forward to it," she said. Then she reached into the bag she had brought with her and pulled out a small rectangular object, wrapped in brown paper and a green ribbon. "I got you something, actually. A welcome home gift."

"Now I feel even worse," Daniel said, taking the package. "But thank you, Rose. Really. Should I open it now?"

Rose nodded.

Daniel unwrapped the object, careful not to rip the paper. When he uncovered it, he realized it was a book, which he had expected. The cover was green with small, black letters on it, reading, "A.E. Housman, Assorted Poems."

"He writes a lot about coming home from war," Rose said. "That's not all he writes about of course, but that's some of it. I thought it might be useful to you. Maybe that's a corny notion."

"It's not."

Rose smiled again but her smile quickly dissipated. Her eyes darted around the room uncomfortably. Was she just now realizing the enormity of his physical alteration? Daniel tried to remind himself that, compared to other guys at the VA, what had happened to him was not so enormous, but it certainly felt that way. The difference in how people looked at him—even his father at times—was enormous.

"If you ever want to talk about anything that happened or about how you're coping now," Rose said. "Just let me know. You can call me at my mom's place and I'll come in if you want, or we can talk over the phone."

Rose was crying again and the difference between happy tears and sad tears was readily apparent, even before Rose apologized.

"It's fine," Daniel said, feeling a little disappointed, but knowing he shouldn't blame her. It was a lot to process, seeing him like this. "So," he said. "You're living with your mom again?"

"Yeah." Rose sniffled and swallowed the shakiness in her voice. "I was working in the city but got a job back home so I could be near her."

"What job?" Daniel asked with two parts real excitement—the fact that Rose was old enough to have a real, post-college job was still novel to him—and one part feigned excitement—he wanted to talk about something other than how he was "coping."

"As a teacher at Beverly," Rose said, perking up a little. "I'm replacing a woman who's having a baby."

"At Beverly?" Daniel repeated. This was the elementary school they had both attended, although not at the same time. Rose had moved into town in third grade and by that time, Daniel was already in middle school. "What grade?"

"Second."

"That's great, Rose."

"Yeah, I'm happy about it," Rose said, not sounding very happy. "I start in a week actually."

"You're all grown up now," Daniel said with false cheeriness.

"I have been for quite some time, Daniel."

Daniel stared at his lap, trying not to react to Rose's sudden coldness.

"Sorry, that was rude," she said after a long silence.

"Is there something you want to say, Rose?"

"My mom's sick."

"Oh."

Daniel raised his head to look at Rose. Her face had finally crumpled, but her posture was perfect. A new thing. The Rose Daniel knew had always slouched. Rose bowed her head and buried her face in her hands, her spine still straight. Daniel immediately felt self-centered and childish for assuming her sadness had anything to do with him. Perhaps it did, but that was not all. Life went on around him. People had their sadness, their sickness, completely separate from him.

"I'm so sorry, Rose. Is she going to be okay?"

Rose shook her head without moving her hands.

Daniel sighed deeply. "Come over here," he said. "When you're ready."

Rose finally looked up and came to sit on the arm of the chair—the right arm, next to the missing leg. Daniel tried not to think about it too much. He had just decided, just realized, that this wasn't about him, but he couldn't help feeling self-conscious.

"What do you want me to do?" Rose asked, looking at the spot where his leg should have been.

"I don't," Daniel began. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"Don't worry about it right now. Tell me about your m—"

Rose interrupted Daniel. "Does it hurt?"

"A little."

"Okay. I'll come on the other side then."

She moved to his left side and let herself down forcefully, her posture finally collapsing as she fell against Daniel. He could see why she had felt the need to move. If she were leaning against his right side, his leg would have hurt something awful. Daniel extended his left arm, wrapping it around her shoulders.

"When it happens… _if_ it happens…"

"When," Rose corrected.

"When it happens, you call me," Daniel said. "If you want. Or you call me when it's going to happen. I want to be there. If you want me. I can get out of here for the day."

"That's very kind of you."

"Of course, I wouldn't want to intrude. I'll only come if you want me to be there."

"Of course I want you to be there," Rose said almost angrily. Then, more calmly, "It just feels like too much to ask of you."

"It's not."

Daniel moved his hand to reach for a strand of Rose's hair that was falling in her face and tucked it behind her ear. When they were younger, after they had gotten to know each other better, Daniel used to reach for Rose's hair and tuck it behind her ears on either side frequently. He had seen a man do this to a woman in a drive-in movie once. In the film, it was a romantic gesture but it had also struck him as a gentle, protective thing to do to a woman, sort of like something an older brother might do for a sister. Rose hated it, though. The first time Daniel did it, she immediately pulled the strand of hair back out from behind her ear and then proceeded to push all her hair forward and into her face until she looked wild. It became a little game between them, this annoying thing that Daniel would do and Rose would react to, almost performatively. This more irritating version of the act was certainly a big brother thing to do. They had continued this tradition all the way through Rose's high school years. One time Daniel had asked Rose why she insisted on messing her hair up every time he put it into place and she had answered, "You don't get to decide what my hair looks like."

"It's just to get it out of your face," he had said, incredulously.

"And I'm some helpless damsel who doesn't know how to brush her hair out of her face?"

After that, Daniel had stopped messing with Rose's hair and had decided that she was a singularly peculiar woman. This time, though, he hadn't even thought about it. It had just seemed like a nice thing to do and he had only remembered its relative significance afterward.

"Am I some helpless damsel who can't brush her own hair out of her face?" Rose asked, without moving to untuck her hair.

Daniel laughed, hoping this was the right response. It must have been, because Rose laughed as well, ever so slightly. Daniel was glad to hear it, because, true to form, he had been on the verge of tears watching Rose cry. He still felt somewhat in danger, knowing Rose's mother was dying, but he didn't think his crying would be very helpful to Rose so he was grateful for the distraction.

"I'm glad you're home," Rose said. "I'm sorry everything's so shitty. And I'm sorry I said shit. I couldn't see any way around it."

"I'm so sorry about your mom," Daniel said. "That really is…"

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry about your leg. That's shit too, isn't it?"

"It's okay," Daniel said, more because it was something people expected him to say than because he meant it.

"No, it's not," Rose said. "You're okay. You'll be okay. But it's not okay."

Daniel agreed. No one so far had articulated that so well. People had either been pitying, looking at him like he was irrevocably and irredeemably damaged, or nonchalant, as if the loss of a limb was just an ordinary bump in the road that everyone had to go through.

"What about you?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

"Sometimes I think I shouldn't be. That it would be disloyal."

"It's not. You'll be okay. You won't be the same, but you'll be okay."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Rose said.

"I would."

Just as Rose's father's violence was escalating—ultimately ending with a showdown between him and a then ten-year-old Rose in which he left and never came back—Daniel's mother's illness was also escalating. Within a year of Daniel and Rose's first meeting, Daniel's mother would be dead.

"We've been through shit together before, haven't we?" Rose said.

"We have."

"We'll be okay then."

Daniel nodded, believing this sentiment for the first time in months.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 _Song accompaniment: Take a Walk, The Head and the Heart_

When Rose heard that Daniel had lost his leg, her first thought was that he wouldn't be able to dance anymore, which was stupid. Her second thought was that this was all too much for her to handle at once, which was selfish.

Daniel had never been a notably good dancer anyway, just better than Rose. When Rose had been invited to her first school formal her freshman year of high school, she had told Daniel about being nervous so many times over the phone that he had decided to come home from school for the weekend and teach her how to dance. He learned who her date was while teaching her the waltz.

"Tommy Vickers? He's too old for you."

"He's the same age as you," Rose had said.

" _I'm_ too old for you."

"I don't know about that."

"Well, I do. Tommy Vickers is such a sleeze. I'm going to have a word with him."

At this moment, all the excitement that Rose had felt about Daniel's visit—his visit with the express purpose of seeing her no less—dissipated.

"No you will not," she said. "Do you really think I'm so disgusting that only someone with an ulterior motive would want to date me?"

"That's not what I said at all. You're always twisting my words around." Daniel had let out an exhausted sigh.

"Well, if I'm so difficult then, why'd you bother coming home?" she asked, storming off.

Daniel came and found her half an hour later and convinced her to continue the lessons.

"I'm sorry for offending you," he said. "I think Tommy Vickers is too old for you, but I suppose that's a decision you have to make for yourself."

"I think you're just jealous I'm going to be dancing with someone who's not you," Rose said.

"Don't be gross, Rosie," Daniel had replied.

Rose had not been trying to be gross, but was too demoralized by this answer to protest much. She didn't even bother chastising Daniel for calling her "Rosie."

Now, Daniel wouldn't be able to dance or run or maybe even walk—not normally anyway. And Rose was adjusting to all of these new things Daniel couldn't do one month after her mother had been diagnosed with colon cancer and a week before her New York teacher's license exam. Still, when she thought about her initial reaction to Daniel's injury, she felt deeply ashamed. Thinking about it in terms of herself was disgraceful, immature. Almost as immature as storming out of dance lesson just because the boy you liked didn't see you the same way you saw yourself. Rose had gotten over all that a long time ago—the immaturity, the juvenile crush on Daniel, the desire to learn how to waltz.

After her moment of unforgiveable selfishness, Rose decided to dedicate herself fully to finding ways to make her mother happy, finding ways to support Daniel, and studying for her exam. She even scheduled these activities out for the week on a giant floor calendar she bought just for the purpose. When her mother told her during one of their phone calls that, at one point, doctors hadn't even been sure if Daniel would survive—the implication being that they should all be grateful he did and not dwell on any lasting injuries—Rose had felt worse, not better. The idea of Daniel lying there, terrified of what might happen to him, made her so sad she could hardly stand it. She decided to redouble her efforts in all three areas—Daniel, her mother, and the test. As she couldn't double the hours in the day, she just began sleeping less.

First, she passed her exam. Then she found a job in Goldham, where her mother lived, instead of New York City, where she had been working while studying for the exam and where she had been planning to stay. Finally, she agonized for hours over the perfect welcome home present to get Daniel, assigning just as much important to this quest as to the search for the job.

She was so nervous about seeing Daniel in the hospital that she had formulated a detailed plan of attack. She would look at his face and only his face, not allowing her eyes to dart to his leg or her smile to falter. She would walk quickly and without hesitation. It would be like jumping into a cold lake and getting it over with all at once, the way she used to when she was a kid. As soon as she had actually seen Daniel, though, she realized she hadn't needed to worry. He looked just the same as he always had, only without a leg, which was significant but something she had been imagining for so long she had grown used to it. Upon seeing him for the first time in years, she had forgotten her plan entirely. She looked at his face and only his face. She walked quickly and without hesitation. But it wasn't part of her plan anymore. She hardly gave it any thought at all. Her excitement propelled her forward and it _was_ like jumping into a lake but in a different way than she had expected. It reminded her of sweltering days in August when she would slip out of the house and run to the small, murky pond behind her house. Her plan was never to jump in—the water was algae green and silty—but she always did anyway, unable to stand the heat for a second longer once the cool water was in her sights, waiting for her. She had brought Daniel to this pond a few times, but he had refused to get in the water, saying it was too dirty. That was one of the differences between Rose and Daniel. Daniel considered things carefully before doing. Rose just did.

The second time Rose visited Daniel, he was up and walking, but did not seem happy about it, or particularly happy to see her either. Perhaps "up and walking" was an overly generous description. When she entered the ward, Daniel was walking with two crutches, avoiding putting any weight on his right leg, which was now attached to a prosthesis. He nodded at her, but didn't say anything.

"Now try putting some weight on that right leg," the man walking with Daniel said.

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath before shifting his weight to rest evenly over both legs. The effect was immediate. His right leg collapsed underneath him and he fell to the ground with a thud. Rose did not try to help him up, knowing he wouldn't appreciate it.

"All right, we knew that might happen," the man said. "Now try to get back up."

Daniel raised his head and gave the man a look of disgust.

"Or maybe we could call it a day," the man said.

Daniel nodded and moved to get up, but seemed unsure of how to proceed. He pushed himself up so he was kneeling, still only putting weight on his left leg. As he lifted his left leg to take a step up, however, he let his right knee touch the ground, supporting him for just a moment. Rose saw his eyes widen in pain as he did so, but this time he remained steady, pulling himself up on his crutches.

"Good work, Sousa," the man said, beginning to walk away before Daniel called him back.

"Hey, Bronson. Thanks for pushing me."

The man smiled. "You always gonna give me such murderous looks when I do?"

"Probably."

Daniel forced a smile that instantly disappeared as soon as Bronson turned his back.

"That was embarrassing," he said, making his way back to his chair and studiously avoiding eye contact with Rose.

"Which part?" she asked.

"Is that a joke?" Daniel settled into the chair with a groan and leaned the crutches against the wall. Within a few seconds they had fallen to the ground with a clatter. Rose moved to pick them up but Daniel held out a hand to stop her. "Just leave them."

Rose nodded and took a seat on the edge of Daniel's bed.

"It wasn't a joke," she said. "I don't think there's anything embarrassing about working to get better at something."

"Even if that something is walking?"

"Even then."

Daniel looked into Rose's eyes for the first time since her arrival and smiled sadly.

"Sorry I'm such a sad sack," he said.

"You're not."

"So, how's your mom doing?"

Rose bristled at the question, sitting up straighter. Junior year, she had lived in a boarding house with a group of dancers. They had all looked so elegant, walking around with their perfectly vertical spines and graceful limbs. Rose still couldn't dance but she had been able to adopt the posture, relying on it especially in uncomfortable situations.

"She's fine," she said.

She could instantly tell Daniel didn't believe her. He furrowed his brow and looked at her like someone might look at a lost puppy.

"Don't look at me like that," she snapped. _I don't look at you that way_ , she wanted to add. _And I absolutely could._

"Sorry."

"No," she said, immediately feeling guilty. "It's fine. It's just that, she's not doing so well. She's having trouble swallowing food. She hasn't been able to eat anything in a few days. I talked to her doctors and they say this isn't the end but I have to wonder if it would be better if it were. I mean, what more can happen? I'm sorry. Is that a horrible thing to say?"

"No, not at all. I understand what you mean." Daniel frowned. "Should you be here visiting me then? I don't want to take you away from her."

"It's fine. She's mostly been sleeping lately. Your dad's with her actually."

Rose and Daniel's father, Ed, had made a pact around the time Rose's mother got sick and Daniel got shot that they'd help each other through whatever happened next. So far, Rose had needed more help than Ed but he didn't seem to mind.

"You'll see. Soon I'll be needing you," he had said recently. Then added, "Not that anything's going to happen to happen to Daniel, of course. I just mean, well, I'm sure I'll be needing you for something. Just, don't worry about it, Rose."

Daniel and Rose looked at each other without saying anything. Rose wondered what there was to talk about when your days consisting of relearning how to walk or caring for a dying mother. She was teaching now, but the first few weeks had not gone as well as she had hoped and she wasn't in the mood to talk about it. The problem wasn't so much her students, as the other teachers. Most of them were older and still remembered her from when she was a student at Beverly—an unruly, troublesome student—and they held a grudge. This had initially struck Rose as exceedingly childish until she reflected on all the fights she had gotten into at Beverly, all the teachers she had verbally thrashed. Her psychology textbooks in college described this behavior as "perpetuating the cycle of abuse," the phenomenon in which an abuse victim metes out the punishment they suffer at home on anyone else they can. Until she reached seventh grade, this was how Rose had treated everyone except for Daniel and her mother.

Rose surveyed the room, looking for something interesting to comment on. On her second optical sweep, she noticed a small, yellow object lying on the floor near where Daniel had fallen.

"Is that yours?" she asked, getting up to retrieve it.

"I can get it," Daniel said, beginning to rise from his chair.

"Don't be silly," Rose said. "Unless you'd like the practice, I suppose."

Daniel waved away the suggestion, sinking back into the chair and looking sheepish. When Rose reached the yellow speck, she realized why. She picked it up and turned back to Daniel, holding a tiny, stuffed giraffe, the size of her palm.

"I had forgotten about this," she said.

Daniel blushed. "How could you forget someone as important as Mr. Long Neck?"

"Mr. Long Neck?"

"Yeah, that's what you named him."

"Not me."

"Yes you," Daniel said. "That's what you told me his name was when you gave him to me."

"No, you must have named him that yourself afterwards," Rose said. "How old were you then, Daniel? Twelve? How embarrassing for you."

"I distinctly remember you telling me his name was Mr. Long Neck."

"Human memory is notoriously faulty."

"So why couldn't it be your memory that's wrong?" Daniel asked.

"Because he was _my_ giraffe."

"I've had him for longer, though."

"Wow," Rose said, turning the figurine over in her hands. "I can't believe you kept it all these years."

About a month after her first meeting with Daniel, eight-year-old Rose was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of a siren. She never slept that soundly—a person couldn't, living with a man like her father—but the siren likely would have woken her regardless. It was so loud. She rushed to the window, to see the carrier of the sound was exceedingly bright as well. Soon, the red, blue, and white flashing lights had stopped at Daniel's house. She watched as a woman she didn't recognize was carried out on a stretcher and placed in the ambulance. Daniel's father followed closely behind, climbing into the back of the ambulance to join the woman. Daniel, for his part, stood on the last step of the porch—as close to the woman as he could be without leaving the confines of his house. After the ambulance pulled away, he stayed there for several minutes before retreating back inside. Rose watched as a light turned on in a second story window.

For a while, Rose sat cross-legged on her bed, trying to resist the urge to go over and investigate. She couldn't help it, though. There was a great climbing tree right by the window—a huge oak with thick branches that started close to the bottom. It would be so easy to climb in. And Daniel would probably be feeling sad and scared, the way she had been when they first met. She crept back out of bed, a mixture of curiosity and compassion drawing her forward. Just before leaving the room, she reached into a small box of treasures by her bed and pulled out the giraffe—a visiting present.

She ran across the field that separated the two houses as quickly as she could. Visions of her father watching her from the window unnerved her, but she knew that he must have been sleeping still. He was the only deep sleeper in the house. There was no threatening presence to keep him awake at night.

Rose felt better as soon as she reached the tree and hoisted herself up onto the first branch. From there, it was an easy scurry up to Daniel's window. He was just reaching for the light, his back to her, when she knocked. Daniel jumped and then turned very slowly. Rose waved at him, beckoning for him to come let her in. When he did, Rose tumbled into the room excitedly. Daniel looked less thrilled.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "It's late."

"Hi, Daniel," Rose said, ignoring the question.

"Hi, Rose," Daniel responded, looking at her with suspicion.

Rose looked around the sparse room. The rafters were exposed like in an attic and the walls had no plaster or paint. It looked like a barn made into a house, which is exactly what it was. Still, it seemed pretty comfortable. It was warm enough and there was a model airplane hanging from the ceiling above Daniel's bed. In the corner was a desk and next to that was a dresser. Rose waited for Daniel to invite her to sit somewhere but when he didn't, she plopped down on the wooden floor.

"Was that your mother?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is she sick?"

Daniel nodded.

"Is she going to get better?"

"No."

Rose nodded now too, solemnly, as if she had known the answer before she even asked. She at least felt like she had always known, after hearing it. She reached into her pocket for the giraffe and held it out for Daniel. "Here." He looked at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. She nodded excitedly to show him that he should take it. He did so, smirking slightly.

"Thanks," he said and Rose felt like he meant it.

"Why did they leave you behind?" she asked.

"This has happened before," Daniel said. "She might have to be there for a while. My father didn't want me to stay the night at the hospital and miss school tomorrow."

"You must get scared in this house all by yourself."

"No," Daniel said quickly, defensively.

"You were scared when I knocked at the window."

"Well I'm not used to strange people appearing at my window late at night."

"I'm not that strange," Rose said. Daniel raised his eyebrows in response. "Do you want me to stay?" she asked, as if this were the most normal thing in the world, as if she and Daniel were old friends and he had asked her over to sit with him in his time of need, as if she hadn't just shown up uninvited.

"No," Daniel said. "I think you should go home. It's too late for you to be up."

"I never sleep much anyway. I don't need it like other people do."

"Everyone needs sleep."

"Not me," Rose said. "You wanna go to sleep and I'll stay up and watch to make sure nothing bad happens?"

"No," Daniel said more forcefully.

He was growing impatient. Rose decided to ignore this. She was adept at knowing when someone's frustration signaled danger and she didn't pay it much heed when it didn't. She knew Daniel wasn't dangerous.

"Don't be embarrassed just 'cause you're older than me," she said. "I do this for my mom too and she's very old. She doesn't know I do it, but I do. When my dad goes out, I go and watch her sleep just to make sure he doesn't come back and do anything bad."

Daniel's face softened. He looked sad, but Rose couldn't understand why. He must have been thinking especially hard about his mother.

"What do you do if he does do something bad?"

"I stop him."

"How could you stop him?" Daniel asked. "You're just a little—"

"I'm big for my age," Rose interrupted.

Now Daniel laughed. "Okay."

"When I need to get help, I do. That's what I was doing that night I came over here. I don't usually need help, though."

"Does that happen often?" Daniel asked.

"Not a lot. A few times a week."

"A few times a week?"

"Yeah, but it's usually not as bad as that time was. Like I said, I can usually handle it on my own."

Daniel nodded. He looked far away, like he was thinking hard about something. Then he leaned forward and put his hand on Rose's shoulder like an adult talking to a child. "Rose, are you afraid to go home?"

"No. It's like I told you. I'm here in case you get scared. _I'm_ not scared of anything."

As she said this, Rose imagined what would happen if her father caught her out of the house at this hour, talking to a neighbor no less, maybe saying things about him.

"All right then," Daniel said. "Thank you, but I think I'll be fine for the night. Come on, I'll walk you home."

"No!" Bringing someone over to the house was one of the worst things Rose or her mother could do.

"Okay."

Rose stood up and started for the window. Daniel laughed.

"You can take the door," he said.

Rose followed Daniel down the stairs to the front door. Once there, she wasn't sure what to say but thought she should probably say something.

"Sorry about your mom," she said. "I'll, uh, I'll pray for her." Rose's family didn't pray but she had heard people say this before.

"Thanks."

"Did I make you feel better?" Rose asked. "With the giraffe and everything."

Daniel smiled. "Yeah. You did."

"Oh good," Rose said. "That's what I wanted to do."

Daniel reached into his pocket where he had deposited the toy. "Want it back?"

"No, you keep him."

"Thanks, Rose."

"Okay," Rose had said. "Bye."

In the hospital, Rose smiled at the childhood memory as she handed the giraffe back to Daniel.

"I think it might be your turn to have Mr. Long Neck for a while," he said.

"Oh no. That was a gift. He's yours now. And I did _not_ call him Mr. Long Neck."

"Gosh, you were such a weird kid, Rose."

"I was a charming kid," Rose said, knowing this was only selectively true.

"That too."

"I was way too creative to ever name a giraffe Mr. Long Neck. That was all you."

"I guess we'll just have to settle for not knowing," Daniel said.

"No we won't. I know, Daniel. I did not name that giraffe Mr. Long Neck."

Daniel threw his hands up. "You're impossible, you know that?"

Rose smiled mischievously. "I do know that."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 _Song accompaniment: Candles, Rufus Wainwright_

Rose's mother died on a Tuesday. Daniel remembered because he left the hospital to be with Rose on Wednesday, one of his two-a-day PT days. Bronson had accused him of making up a story to try to get out of therapy and Daniel had practically bitten his head off. It hadn't been Bronson's fault, though. Daniel hadn't actually told anyone why he was leaving. Just that he was.

Daniel had wanted to be with Rose when her mother died, but the death had been more sudden than the doctors had predicted. Her health was bad enough, there was plenty of reason to suspect it, but the doctors had been so sure she would hang in there for a few more months.

"It's probably for the best," Rose said when Daniel arrived at her house.

"I'm so sorry, Rosie," Daniel said, wanting to stand up and hug her, but worrying that he might not be able to.

He was still so clumsy on his crutches that he had agreed to take a wheelchair with him, on the recommendation of the hospital staff. This made him feel like a true invalid, but he didn't want to be a nuisance to Rose at a time like this, didn't want to be stumbling around, needing assistance.

Rose blinked back tears as she stooped to give him a hug.

"I always used to think as long as I was watching her, nothing bad could happen." Suddenly, she looked embarrassed by this confession. "Stupid," she said, standing back up.

"That's not stupid," Daniel said, but Rose was already walking away from him.

After that, Rose was unnervingly controlled. She barely spoke and hardly reacted to Daniel when he spoke. As Daniel and his father helped her plan the funeral—Rose had no remaining relatives—she displayed a startlingly clinical quality.

"We should get the cheapest casket," she said at one point. "It's just going to go in the ground."

At night, Daniel slept on the couch at her house. Her mother's room was open and on the ground floor, but it didn't seem right to claim that space, even though Rose had offered it. Perhaps it would have made more sense for him to stay at his father's home—his own home in many ways—but Daniel would have had to sleep on the couch there as well, as all the bedrooms were at the top of a long staircase. Besides, he kept thinking that Rose might have some breakthrough, might finally crack, at night and he didn't want her to have to be alone if that happened. When they were kids, Rose had told him that she did her best thinking at night and that if she held it inside herself without telling anyone for too long, she was "liable to explode." These were the words she had used at eleven, which had amused Daniel. From the time they met to the time Daniel went away to college, Rose would frequently appear in the middle of the night, perched in the tree outside Daniel's room, always with some new idea.

"Do you know why no animal has five legs?" she'd asked, climbing through his window. "Evolution." Or, "I've been thinking that the world might need a new religion." Or, "Do you ever get sad about Roosevelt and Taft? They were such good friends before they started fighting."

But that was a long time ago. Daniel supposed Rose had gotten used to holding her ideas inside. He tried to find ways to tell her that she didn't have to, but it was no use. After three days with her, he began to wonder if he was more of a nuisance than anything else. Every morning when he woke up, Rose would have breakfast ready for him, making Daniel feel more like an annoying houseguest than a help. He tried getting up earlier so he could prepare breakfast for both of them, but Rose always beat him to it. Sometimes he wondered if she even slept at all.

Five days after Rose's mother died, they held a funeral. It was a small affair, but well enough attended to satisfy Rose—or at least, that's what Daniel thought she meant when she turned to him and said, in a detached manner, "I didn't think this many people would come." Rose's mother had been a quiet woman, but, after her husband left, she had gone back to school and become a nurse. Many of the mourners were fellow nurses and doctors, as well as the occasional former patient. Others were people from town who had never really known Rose's mother beyond knowing of her existence, but had felt obligated to come anyway. Rose greeted them all gratefully but flatly. She didn't reveal any emotion until the burial. As she stood watching the men lower her mother's casket into the ground, she let out a sound like she had just been punched in the stomach and grabbed Daniel's shoulder so hard it hurt. Daniel looked up at her and raised his hand to take hold of hers, but she had already let go and turned away.

At the funeral reception at her home, Rose circulated among the guests thanking them for the assorted casseroles they all seemed to have brought. Daniel tried to keep track of her, but was repeatedly hindered by people coming up to speak to him. None of them seemed like they truly wanted to interact with him and Daniel didn't particularly want to speak to them either. He wished they could be open with one another and respectfully ignore each other, but it was a small town, and the return of "one of their boys" necessitated some sort of response. Several people told him they thought he was still in the hospital, as if they wished he still were. He supposed the wheelchair made them uncomfortable. They must have assumed if he just stayed in the hospital for longer, he'd be able to leave without it, walking out on his own two legs. This _was_ the theory, but Daniel was beginning to trust in it less and less.

During one excruciating conversation, his former Sunday school teacher asked him if he had a "sweetheart" who had waited for him during the war. When he told her no, she looked at him sadly and said, "Poor dear, I suppose it might be hard to provide for a woman now." When she asked Daniel where Rose was, he was thrilled to use this as an excuse to leave the conversation.

"I'll go look for her," he said, moving away from the woman as quickly as possible, despite the fact that the house was small enough for him to survey the entire first floor from one spot. Scanning the room, he noticed a crack of light emanating from below the closed door of Rose's mother's bedroom. He tried to make his way over there without drawing too much attention to himself, but was not very successful. He made sure to bow his head as he passed people, though, so as to avoid eye contact and better pretend not to hear their invitations to talk. He was not here for them.

He opened the door slowly, trying to give Rose time to discover he was there without knocking or speaking too loudly and drawing the attention of the rest of the house. Rose didn't seem to notice him, however. She was lying face down on the bed, her head buried in a pillow, drowning out the sound of the people gathered outside. When Daniel cleared his throat, she rose slowly, as if she weren't sure she had really heard anything. When she finally saw him and registered fully, she shot up to a seated position, leaving behind black mascara stains on the pillow case.

"May I come in?" Daniel asked.

Rose nodded and sighed deeply.

"I suppose people must be asking for me," she said.

"Yes, but that's not why I'm here."

Daniel shut the door behind him and wheeled himself over to the bed. When Rose looked down at her lap, he bent his head and leaned forward, trying to make it impossible to avoid his gaze. Rose noticed and quickly turned her eyes toward his, clearly annoyed. Daniel wondered how long he had before Rose told him to go mind his own business. But then her face changed radically. The anger was gone and she seemed deflated.

"I'm not very good at this," she said.

"Good at what?"

"At living without her."

"You're doing it right now," Daniel said.

"But not well."

"It'll just take time."

Daniel reached forward and placed a hand on top of hers. At this, Rose began to sob. She gulped down deep, rakey breaths as if she couldn't get enough air. For several minutes, Daniel sat there without speaking, holding her hand. He was tempted to shush her—not the silencing shushing of a librarian, but the kind shushing that someone uses to tell a crying person that it's all okay, that they can calm down because there is nothing to worry about. But it wasn't okay, not yet, and there was plenty to worry about. When Daniel's own mother had died, everyone had insisted on telling him it was okay or that he shouldn't be too sad because his mother wouldn't have wanted it. He had come to think that this was more for their sake than for his. Adults didn't like to deal with crying children, especially not crying boys on the brink of becoming young men. That kind of weak behavior was unbecoming for a boy of twelve and embarrassing for everyone, or so Daniel had been led to believe. He wouldn't do the same to Rose.

When Rose was finished, she closed her eyes for a long time, before opening them and looking at the door nervously.

"Do you think anyone heard?" she asked.

Daniel assured her that no one could have heard, knowing he was probably lying.

"When's the last time you ate?" he asked.

Rose gave him a look communicating that she thought this was an unimportant question to ask at a time like this.

"It's an important part of living," Daniel said.

"I'm not hungry."

Daniel frowned. He had hardly seen Rose eat since he arrived. He had reasoned that she must have eaten her own breakfast before he woke up, but he was starting to doubt this.

"You're not hungry or you don't think you should be?" he asked. "I've known the feeling, Rose. Eating might feel blasphemous right now, like you shouldn't be doing anything other than being sad, but I promise you, it's not. You're allowed to take care of yourself."

"I don't remember the last time I ate," Rose whispered. Then she sat up straight, collecting herself. "I guess I'll have to go out and face people if I want to get a shot at one of those casseroles."

"You can stay here," Daniel said. "I'll bring you something."

"No, I'll go. I should go out there and talk to people anyway."

"You don't have to."

"I do." Rose sighed. "Do I look all right?"

Daniel considered this for a moment. Rose's face was red and her mascara had run, make it look like someone had painted with watercolors on her cheeks.

"You might want to freshen up a bit," he said, handing her a handkerchief.

Rose scrubbed at her face rather ferociously, but when she pulled the handkerchief away, her cheeks were still stained.

"Here," Daniel said, licking his thumb and moving toward her face.

Rose pulled back in disgust.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I was trying to help you."

"You were going to wipe your spit on me."

"Uh, yes, I guess I was."

Daniel was trying to think of what to say to salvage the situation, when Rose began to laugh. It wasn't a small laugh either. It was loud and continued for at least a minute before Rose quieted down and leaned forward, clutching her sides.

"What was that?" Daniel asked.

"Nothing," Rose said, still chuckling slightly. "That's just, that's so gross, and it's a little funny and it's so wonderful for anything to be funny right now."

Daniel was thrilled to see Rose so happy, even if he didn't think he had done anything that unusual. "I'm glad I could be of service."

"Yes," Rose said. "Thank you very much."

She stood up to leave the room, but Daniel stopped her.

"You can still see," he began, gesturing to his own cheeks. "You can see that you've been crying."

"Well, Daniel, it is a funeral."

Rose looked back at Daniel with a smile that fit neither her words nor the occasion. Still, Daniel was happy to see it and hoped Rose wouldn't feel guilty about this happiness later on. When his own mother died, the sadness had been overwhelming, but so had the obligation to feel sad. For months after her death, one of the only things that could make him smile was conversations with his weird kid neighbor. The smiles were always short-lived, however, slowly closing into frowns as the guilt hit him and he realized how shameful it was to be happy when his mother was gone. Eventually, Rose noticed this trend.

"Keep smiling," she ordered him.

"What?"

"If you're happy, be happy."

Daniel wondered if she remembered that piece of advice and if she would take it to heart now.

When the funeral reception was finally over, Daniel and his father helped Rose clean up the house. Daniel had tried to convince her that he and his father could tidy up by themselves, but Rose had said, "I'm sad, not busy," and he had conceded the point. For dinner, they sampled the many remaining casseroles, none of which were very good—rationing had forced cooks to be creative and some creativity was more successful than others. After multiple days of martyr-like starvation, Rose ate voraciously, causing Daniel and his father to share a knowing look—a rare point of connection for them as of late. Around ten, Daniel's father returned to his own house. As soon as he was gone, Rose stood up and began searching through the kitchen cabinets, eventually returning to the table with a half-full bottle of whiskey and pouring two generous glasses.

"Cheers," she said, clinking her glass against Daniel's and taking a large swig. Daniel took a sip too and began to sputter. It tasted like motor oil smelled. He looked up to see Rose flinching and red in the face.

"How old is this, Rose?" Rose's mother didn't drink and Daniel had never thought of Rose as one to sit around sipping whiskey alone, although that may have changed in the years they spent apart.

"God," Rose said. "I hadn't thought about that. It must be twelve years, give or take. It was my father's."

"And it's been open all that time?"

Rose nodded, still grimacing from the rank liquor.

"Would it be terrible to drink it anyway?" she asked.

"Why would you want to?"

Rose shrugged. "It seems like the thing to do."

"Not the most healthy thing to do."

"No," Rose said. "But, I'm so confused about everything right now, I've decided I should just do what feels right in the moment and this feels right now."

Daniel frowned.

"You don't agree?"

He didn't, but he had learned a long time ago that it was best to let Rose come to these decisions on her own. He had lost too many arguments on the topic of how Rose should live her life to know better now.

"I don't," he said. "But I won't stop you. In fact…" He raised his glass in a toast. "Here's to going down together."

Rose smiled at him as she downed the rest of her glass and Daniel did the same. They both broke into a hybrid cough and laugh.

"This is truly awful," Daniel said.

"Yes, it is," Rose agreed, pouring herself another glass. "I've always thought funeral receptions were a strange custom," she said. "The idea that you've just lost someone and now you have to entertain a bunch of people at your house when that's the last thing you want to do. But it ended up being kind of nice. It shows that people liked her. I mean, people at the hospital really liked her. And respected her. She was really good at what she did. She knew her science and she was so compassionate. And people in town liked her well enough. They knew she existed at least. And that wasn't always the case, you know? My father used to… well, she wasn't allowed to know other people. But that all changed. She made a life for herself."

"She did," Daniel said.

"I wish it could have been a longer one, but it was a good one. And she was always wonderful, of course. It was just, for a while, only I knew it." Tears collected in Rose's eyes as she lifted her glass to her lips. "It feels weird to talk about her in the past tense," she said, putting the glass back down without drinking any of its contents. She looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes tightly. When she opened them, she carefully avoided eye contact with Daniel, staring deep into the glass of whiskey clasped in her hands. Daniel knew she was fighting with herself, recognizing all the familiar—and usually fruitless—attempts to control one's emotions.

"You can cry if you want to," he said.

"I _don't_ want to," Rose said, lifting her gaze to meet Daniel's. "Thank you, though." She wiped at her eyes. "I may not have a choice." She laughed but there was no happiness behind it. She raised her glass again, this time gulping down a significant portion of whiskey. "You know, I said it was nice to have people here—and it was—but I did have a few awkward conversations. People just don't know how to behave at these kinds of things. People don't know how to behave in general, really. So many people were asking me when I was going to get married. As if, now that my mother's gone, it's time to find someone else to look after me. It's ridiculous. Mr. Lamprey, from the post office, actually decided that now would be a good time to ask me if I planned to keep teaching after I got married."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I did. So then he said that surely I'd retire once I had children and I told him that I wasn't sure I would and he just about fainted. Then he asked me what I thought of all the women nowadays pursuing their work in such a 'manly' way—his word, not mine—and I told him that I thought, with women becoming so mannish, the feminization of men was not far behind, that it was the work of the devil, and that I had become a Satanist in hopes of speeding up the process."

Daniel, who had taken another tentative sip of his drink, began to cough—from the foulness of the whiskey but also from shock. He had been following Rose's line of reason and rooting for her up until the "feminization of men" part.

"You didn't really say that to him, did you?"

"No, those are the kinds of stories that spread and I don't think people in town would be particularly pleased to find out they have a Satanist school teacher—which they don't of course. No, I just told him that I was all for it and walked away before I could get myself into any trouble."

Daniel chuckled and shook his head. Rose was still full of strange ideas, even if she was being mostly facetious.

"It seems that I scared you, though," she said. "Did I, Daniel?"

"No. Well, maybe just a bit."

Daniel paused, considering whether to tell Rose about what the Sunday school teacher had said to him. This conversation seemed to be distracting Rose from her grief and, if he was honest with himself, he wanted to get it off his chest, to test what her reaction would be, to gauge whether any of it had any validity.

"I had a similar interaction with Mrs. Samuelson," he said. "She seemed to be implying that no woman would ever marry me because I can't provide for her now." He tried to sound casual, like this was just a silly joke, but Rose saw through the act. At first, she looked incredibly sad—a new, different kind of sadness from the sadness she felt about her mother—then incredibly angry.

"Daniel, I'm so sorry. That's horrible. And absolutely ridiculous to boot. Of course you'll be able to provide for her, or for a family someday. And women can work now too so it's not even… well, it's a ridiculous comment regardless."

"Thanks, Rose," Daniel began, but she evidently was not done.  
"You could also support a family on your own if you had to. It's outrageous to say otherwise. Damn. That makes me so angry." Rose paused for a moment. "Do you want me to stop talking about this?"

"No," Daniel said. He appreciated Rose's reaction, her confidence in him. It didn't seem put-on either, like she was just angry at Mrs. Samuelson for cruelly telling him the truth. She really seemed to believe this was not the truth. "If you're done that's fine," he continued. "But you don't have to be."

"I think I'm done, but that is so stupid. I'm sorry that happened."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not."

She was right, just as she had been when she told him that what happened to him in Europe and his resulting injury were not okay.

"I'll have to get used to that kind of thing, though."

"Ah no, I think you'll just have to prove them wrong until they stop saying horseshit like that." Rose refilled both of their glasses. "To proving people wrong," she said.

Daniel smiled. The drink didn't taste quite as acidic this time. He was even beginning to like it.

The next morning, Daniel woke up on the couch to find Rose's shoes in his hand, not entirely sure how they got there—or how he got there for that matter. He vaguely remembered Rose passing out on her mother's bed, fully dressed. He must have taken her shoes off for her and, drunk himself, decided to carry them back to his own bed. He sat up slowly, his ears ringing, and saw that he had fallen asleep without removing his shoes either, or without removing one of them at least. He found it difficult to pull shoes off his right prosthetic foot and even more difficult to get them on in the first place. He supposed he had decided to save himself the trouble last night. He stood up even more unsteadily than usual and transferred himself into the wheelchair. He had finally woken up before Rose and decided to take the opportunity to make her breakfast for once. As he rifled through the cabinets, noting that nothing had moved since the last time he had cooked in Rose's kitchen many years ago, he heard a faint moaning emanating from the bedroom.

"Oh no," he heard Rose mutter.

"All right?" he called.

"Yes? Maybe."

Rose staggered into the kitchen as Daniel was dividing scrambled eggs onto two plates.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"I think I feel better than you, just judging from looks."

Rose's face was pale and her eyes were narrowed, like she could barely keep them open.

"Gee, thanks," she said. "I guess that's good, though. I dragged you into my bad decisions last night. I wouldn't want you to have to suffer the consequences as much as I am."

"I suppose that's fair."

Rose took one bite of the eggs before returning her fork to the plate.

"Queasy?"

She nodded.

"At least it's a distraction," she said. "Trading one misery for another. Was that melodramatic?"

"No."

"Good, because that's the last thing I'd want to be." Rose put her head down on the table. Raising it, she said, "Thanks for being here, Daniel."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 _Song accompaniment: Come on up to the House, Tom Waits_

Daniel stayed with Rose for a week before returning to the hospital. As soon as he was gone, she missed him terribly—partially because he was Daniel and partially just because he was a person and she was lonely. She returned to school the day after Daniel left. She wasn't sure what else there was to do besides sit home and cry, which didn't seem like a productive use of time. Her modest sized house had begun to feel threateningly vast and she was scared about what lurked behind every corner. It was better to go be useful to someone.

Her fellow teachers had finally warmed to her—or at least had pretended to out of pity. They asked her if they could do anything for her, maybe bring her dinner or swing by her house, "just to chat." She was grateful but always said no. Whenever she spent time with someone, she found it hard to concentrate, often feeling like she was not truly there but rather watching a conversation between two strangers from a far off distance, unable to make out what either one was saying. This made her feel anxious and rude, terrified that her conversation partner would find out that she wasn't really listening, not because she didn't want to but because she couldn't. The only people she was truly present around were her students and they all left at the end of the school day. She felt untethered from the rest of humanity, as if no one else had ever lost a mother or could know what she was going through. This was foolish, of course. She knew this and berated herself for it constantly. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow different from other people now and less able to interact with them as a result. At the same time, she hated her moments of solitude, especially at night when she spent the hours sobbing into her mother's pillow, telling herself to get a grip.

When she was with people, she wanted to get away and when she had gotten away, she wanted to be back with people.

This indecision had rattled her since the funeral reception. Rose hadn't been sure what she wanted when she disappeared that day. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted someone to find her, someone to make her not want to be alone. She had of course chosen her mother's room to hide in out of a desire to feel close to her again, but she suspected that she had also chosen this first floor room so that Daniel could find her—which he did. She told herself that Daniel knew her better than anyone else, which she knew deep down was true, but less true than she would have liked. There were always small things that he never picked up on. But he was there for her in a way that no one other than her mother ever had been—unconditionally and without hesitation. Rose had always tried to do the same for him and had been, she thought, largely successful, even as a child when her attempts were often inelegant and fumbling.

By the time Daniel's mother died, Rose had been climbing in and out of his window for months. They had also been walking to school together as far as they could before the elementary and middle school paths diverged. At first, Rose had waited by her front door, timing her exit so as to "accidentally" run into Daniel. Daniel had seemed perturbed to have his solitary walk intruded upon, but Rose was convinced that if he just got to know her better, he would grow to cherish her company. And she must have been right because, after a few weeks, Daniel began waiting for her outside her house every morning, often with a follow-up question about an idea she had presented to him the night before or his own contribution to a discussion they had started days ago. She had even told him he could call her Rosie, because "everybody else did." Everybody else meaning her mother. She didn't have any friends and her father hardly called her anything.

Rose knew when Daniel's mother died because the ambulance came to take her body away and both Daniel and his father got in the back with her, only this time no one was hurrying. She and her mother did not attend the funeral even though they knew when it was from reading the paper. Her father would not have liked them going to such a thing and would have been suspicious of how they even knew these people in the first place. He would have jumped to, in this case accurate, conclusions about how Rose and her mother had met these neighbors and would have been furious. Instead, Rose's mother had sent a Mass card and a bouquet of flowers that Rose had picked out. It didn't seem right, though, sitting in her room when Daniel was all alone having to face the masses of people who had streamed into his house following the funeral. Rose thought she could see someone moving in Daniel's bedroom but couldn't be sure.

Rose always spent a lot of time in her room. It was a good place to hide from her father while still hearing everything he said to her mother so that she could intervene if necessary. On the day of Mrs. Sousa's funeral, Rose refused to leave her room period. First she skipped breakfast, then she tried to skip lunch, but her mother brought up a plate insisting that she eat, which she did in a quick cursory manner before lying down and turning away from her mother to face Daniel's window.

"It's not fair," she said.

"What isn't fair, Rosie?"

"That Daniel's mother is dead. That's not supposed to happen now. That kind of thing should happen when you're twenty."

"Hopefully a bit older than that," her mother said, lying down beside her and pulling her into a hug. "You're right. It's not fair. But sometimes life isn't fair."

Rose knew this already. Her mother's life with her father certainly wasn't fair. Rose's own life was probably less than fair as well, but she saw no reason why that unfairness should have to extend to Daniel, or anyone else for that matter. Besides, losing a mother was possibly the most unfair thing of all. Contemplating this, Rose began to cry.

"Oh, honey, don't cry. It's okay."

"Not for them," Rose said.

"No, I guess not. Are you worried about me, Rosie? Because you shouldn't be. I'm not going anywhere."

Rose decided not to tell her mother that she was always worried about her, that that fear had been the defining feature of her relatively short life. "I know that," she said. "That's not why I'm sad. I'm sad for Daniel and his father too."

"Yeah, I know. You're so kind, Rosie."

"I'm not," Rose said, thinking about her inability to make friends with her peers at school, her inability to even be civil to them.

"Yes you are," her mother said, stroking her hair. "Yes you are."

Eventually, Rose fell asleep like that, resting in her mother's arms until the thud of a door woke her. It was her father heading out—where, they never knew, but he was usually gone for quite some time.

"I'm fine," Rose whispered to her mom, knowing now was her chance to slip out as well. "I want to be alone."

Her mother gave her a strange look, but got up without protest, kissing her on the forehead before leaving. Rose counted to fifty before sneaking out the front door, running across the field that separated her house from Daniel's, and scrambling up the tree.

She was right. She had seen Daniel in the window. Now, he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest, his head buried in between them. Rose wanted to knock, but wasn't sure it was appropriate. Instead, she just watched, realizing that she had begun to cry again. Eventually, Daniel looked up, his red eyes widening and then narrowing at the sight of Rose outside his window. He stayed seated for a moment, seemingly pondering whether or not to let her in. Finally, he stood up and walked over to the window.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Your mom died," Rose said as if this explained everything, which to her, it did.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked, looking confused.

" _I'm_ fine."

Daniel reached out a hand to help Rose in from the tree, something he had never done before and that he did not need to do. Rose was nimble enough to climb in without any assistance. Rose took his hand anyway, not wanting to be rude at a time like this.

"Why are you crying?" Daniel asked.

Rose sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "I don't know. I'm sad that you're sad."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Rose practically yelled. "She was _your_ mom." She didn't know what she had expected when she came over, whether she had come in order to make herself feel better or whether she had come in order to make Daniel feel better, but she knew this was accomplishing neither and she was unsure what to do with the feelings of grief and frustration swirling around her head.

Daniel looked even more perplexed. "I don't understand. Are you angry with me?"

"No!" Now Rose was truly yelling.

Daniel stood there, opened-mouthed, trying to speak. He might crumple to the floor at any minute. "Well then, what…" he began. "I mean…" Then he stopped and burst into tears, covering his face with his hands.

Rose rushed forward and hugged Daniel tightly. "I'm sorry," she said through tears. "I'm so sorry. I'm not angry. I'm sorry, Daniel. Don't cry." She released him momentarily and looked up at his face. He looked sadder than she had ever seen a person look before, like he would be this way forever or like he was occupying this present moment only and all future moments—be they better or worse than this—were inconceivable and unreachable. "Actually you can cry," she said.

She took his hand and led him back to where he was sitting before. They both sat down and Rose wrapped her arms around Daniel as far as they would go. "I'm going to be quiet now," she said. "You talk if you want to."

Daniel nodded without saying anything. For almost an hour, they sat there, hunched over themselves and each other. At first, Rose was too consumed by the sound and sensation of her own tears, her own sadness, to notice anything else. Soon, this passed and she became more attuned to what was happening with Daniel. He was crying almost silently now, but Rose could still feel his shoulders shaking up and down, accompanied by the occasional sniffle or muffled sob. Then she became habituated to this too and began to listen to the noise of the people downstairs as it slowly diminished. Eventually, Rose couldn't hear anything at all from below and wondered when Daniel's father would come upstairs to check on him. She leaned her head on Daniel's shoulder, her arms still wrapped around him, almost able to reach all the way around. Neither one of them noticed the sounds of footsteps outside until Daniel's father was in the room.

"Rose?" he asked with the same tone of bewilderment Daniel had met her with.

Rose tapped Daniel on the shoulder in order to get him to look at her and then tilted her head toward the window, a nonverbal "Should I go?" Daniel nodded and she stood up. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Sousa," she said, hugging him quickly. He looked down at her with continued disbelief. His eyes were ringed red, but, unlike his son's, they were incredibly dry, like he couldn't cry if he wanted to. As Rose made her way to the window, he said, "Uh, front door, please. It's safer," but by the time he finished, Rose was already outside, crouched in the tree branches.

"Thank you," Daniel mouthed to her as she left.

Rose's students now were a year younger than she had been then and she didn't want to force them into the confusing situation of having to react or respond in some way to her mother's death, so she had asked that they not be told about it. She also knew some of her students had lost fathers in the war and did not want to stir up old memories. Most of her students simply thought she had been sick.

When she walked into her classroom her first day back, Fred Zimmetti, one of the quieter members of her class, leapt from his seat to greet her.

"Well, hello," she said as she felt him hug her around her legs—he was one of her smaller students too.

"I missed you," he said.

"Really? I was only gone for a week."

"It felt like longer."

Rose smiled. This was the longest stream of words she had ever heard Fred speak.

"You know what, Fred? It felt longer to me too."

On her second day back, Fred came in from recess and gifted her with an interesting rock he had found. On the third day, he asked to spend the break inside with her, which is when Rose became concerned. Fred was often alone at recess, maybe due to his size or maybe his shyness. Rose had thought it best to let Fred and the other children figure this out on their own, although she had often exhorted her class to "include friends who might be left out."

"Fred," she began. "Are you having any trouble with your classmates?"

"No," Fred said, dragging a small chair to face her at her desk. "I just want to stay with you."

"Right. I think it might be more fun for you if you went outside with your classmates, though."

"Do you not want me here?"

This wasn't the case at all. Before Fred waltzed back into the classroom from outside, Rose had been sitting there looking at, but not really seeing, the lesson plans on her desk. It was Mrs. Helm's turn to supervise recess and Rose had chosen not to go outside and speak with her, preferring to hide in the classroom and avoid the long conversations that she couldn't seem to truly be a part of anymore. Nonetheless, she was lonely in the empty classroom, counting down the hours until she'd have to leave and be lonely in her empty house. When she first saw Fred, she had been relieved. It was a few seconds after that teacherly concern kicked in.

"No, of course I want you here," she said. "I'm just concerned about why _you_ want to be here."

Fred sighed deeply, looking much older than his seven years. "My mother's a nurse," he said.

Rose failed to see how this was relevant.

"She works at the hospital. She had to work during the funeral, but she told me about it."

"Oh," Rose said, trying not to cry. "So you know about my mother. And you've been worried."

Fred nodded emphatically.

"Oh," Rose repeated, putting a hand to her mouth to hide the quivering of her lips. "That's very kind but you don't have to…" She trailed off, unable to continue without dissolving into highly unprofessional tears.

"I want to," Fred said, walking over to the closet where Rose stored a collection of books and games. He returned with a black and red checkerboard. "I play this with my mom when she's sad. My father's in the war," he added as a means of explanation.

Rose smiled from behind her hand. "All right," she said. "Red or black?"

Rose quickly lost track of time and she and Fred were in the midst of their third game when the other students filed back into the classroom.

"No fair," one of the girls said. "How come Fred's allowed to play with you and we're not?"

"Perhaps next recess," Rose said. "You can take turns."

There was nothing like a group of enthusiastic seven-year-olds to make a person feel popular.

Rose's spirits were still considerably elevated as she sent her students off at the end of the day, waving to them from the doorway. She returned to her classroom and went about preparing for the next day, not quite ready to leave even after she had finished. She stuck her head out into the hallway. Seeing no one, she shut the door behind her and raised her arms slowly above her head, placing them in fifth position. The music of Swan Lake played in her head. Many of the girls from the boarding house had danced in a production of this ballet and Rose and her mother had attended a performance when her mother visited Rose during her last year of college. It would have been just a few months before her mother's diagnosis. Rose did several clumsy pirouettes, then moved her arms into first position as she bent into a plié. There had only been one other non-dancer at the boarding house with Rose and the two had bonded over their comparative lack of grace.

"I think every little girl wants to be a ballerina at some point," Rose's compatriot said once.

"I never did," Rose said. "But I think I do now."

The two of them would walk around the house, standing on their toes as their arms moved limply and foolishly through the air. Finally, one of the dancers stopped them.

"You are making a mockery of the dance," she said, unconsciously mimicking the unusual speech patterns of the girls' Russian coach in an unmistakably midwestern accent. "I must show you how to move properly."

Through this, Rose learned of the various ballet positions—rules that told you where to put your feet and arms—and the many French terms the ballerinas often threw around at the dinner table. "My jeté is becoming sloppy." "Oh, no." "Yes. Did you hear Ms. Inga tell me I landed like an elephant?"

Rose had never been able to master even fairly simple moves, such as the arabesque, in which a dancer stands on one leg, while lifting her back leg out behind her, at least parallel to the floor—if a dancer could lift her leg even higher, though, all the better. Rose always lost her balance and fell forward or failed to straighten her leg to the satisfaction of her midwestern teacher.

"Weak core," the girl would say as Rose began to wobble.

Still, there was something about the orderliness of the positions and moves that appealed to Rose. Executing them—even fairly poorly—made her feel in control, something she had never felt growing up. When she moved into the boarding house, she had not seen Daniel in over a year. Allied forces were pushing deeper into Europe and his letters became less and less frequent, finally stopping entirely. Even though her father had left for good ten years earlier, she still woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about him, wondering if this would be the week he decided to return to her mother's home and worrying about what would happen if Rose were not there to protect her. Rose was doing well in her classes at Barnard College, but when she stepped foot on Columbia's campus, she often felt belittled by her male peers. Far worse than this were the reports out of Europe of camps that Hitler and the Nazis had set up for Jews and anyone else they disliked. Life buzzed around Rose at an alarming pace, full of everything from minor inconveniences to horrific premonitions that would likely never come to pass to horrific events that had already come to pass, and there was nothing she could do about any of it. What she could control were the way her arms shifted from third to fourth to fifth position, the way her stomach tightened and her shoulders pulled back as she sat in a chair, the way her heels clicked together as she moved into first position. Even if she wasn't very graceful, there was a certain beauty in that.

She thought about this, the beauty of order, as she moved slowly about her classroom, only to be disturbed by a knock on the door that made her jump and drop her arms to her sides. She walked to the door, feeling supremely embarrassed, but that embarrassment immediately faded when she saw Fred standing before her, a look of panic on his face.

"There's something wrong with my mom. You need to come."

"What's wrong, Fred? Does she need medical attention?"

"I don't think so," Fred said impatiently, grabbing her hand. "Just come."

Rose took long strides, following Fred as he ran on his short legs, leading her to his house. They arrived to find Fred's mother sitting on the front steps, wearing a skirt and blouse but no shoes, stockings, or coat. It was mid-March and had been unseasonably warm, warm enough to leave the house barefoot, but only to get the mail or talk briefly with a neighbor, certainly not warm enough to sit outside for a long period of time without a coat or anything on one's feet.

"This is how I found her," Fred said, before running up to his mother to stand beside her. "Mom, mom, I brought someone to help." Mrs. Zimmetti did not respond, did not even turn her head to look at her son.

Her stillness was unnerving, but Fred didn't seem frightened by it, or at least not frightened by her. Rose was, however, and she approached Mrs. Zimmetti slowly.

"Hello, Mrs. Zimmetti," she said, speaking slowly. "I'm Rose Flanagan, Fred's teacher. Are you all right?"

This was a stupid question. Obviously Mrs. Zimmetti was not all right. Rose wondered if she should call a doctor, but there didn't seem to be anything medically wrong with Mrs. Zimmetti and Rose did not want to subject her to the poking and prodding of doctors if it was not absolutely necessary. She continued to ignore the goings-on around her, staring into the street without really seeing it. Her eyes were wide and haunted. The only part of her that moved were her hands, which she kept wringing, crumpling something up and passing it from one hand to the next. After a few passes, Rose realized it was a slip of paper. She began to suspect what was happening, but told herself that she was jumping to conclusions.

"Mrs. Zimmetti, do you think I could see that paper?"

Mrs. Zimmetti turned to look at Rose, startling her. Locking eyes with Mrs. Zimmetti made the spectral quality behind her eyes even more apparent. Mrs. Zimmetti's outfit was carefully put together, aside from the omission of the shoes, her makeup was delicately done, and her dark hair was pulled into a tidy bun, but her eyes made her look as Rose had always pictured Bertha Mason, the unfortunate wife of _Jane Eyre_ 'sMr. Rochester, whom he kept locked in the attic due to her dementedness. Rose felt compelled to back away, but stopped herself. Mrs. Zimmetti nodded slowly at Rose, before turning to look at her son and shaking her head. Then she handed Rose the slip of paper and settled back into her previous position, looking out.

Rose carefully uncrumpled the note, smoothing it out between her hands.

IT IS WITH DEEP REGRET THAT I MUST INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND SERGEANT FRED ZIMMETTI WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON EIGHT MARCH IN BELGIUM

"What does it say?" Fred asked.

Mrs. Zimmetti did not look up but Rose saw her eyes widen even further and her fist clench.

"I think that's something for you and your mother to discuss when she's ready."

Fred frowned and Rose wondered if he suspected that his father had died, his father after whom he had apparently been named. Eventually Rose and Fred managed to convince Fred's mother to go back inside and lay down in her room. After that, Rose asked Fred what family members—if any—she should call to come take care of him and his mother. Fred said his mother's parents lived a few hours away and Rose dialed several wrong numbers that he supplied before Fred finally hit on the right one. She sent him to check on his mother while she explained to his grandmother what exactly had happened. She could tell Fred was growing suspicious, but it seemed his mother did not want him to know about his father. Not yet anyway. And Rose thought this was a mother's decision to make, not an overly involved school teacher's. As the hours crept by, however, keeping this secret from Fred began to feel cruel. He knew something was wrong and he was growing more and more agitated. He and Rose played several games of checkers and she tried to let him win, but he was too distracted to take advantage of any of her "mistakes." At eight, when Fred's grandparents had still not arrived, Rose rifled through his pantry and fridge, finding a can of beans and a half-dozen eggs. She fried two eggs for Fred and his mother, eating the second one herself when Mrs. Zimmetti refused the food. She then heated up the beans and divided them between Fred and herself. When he had finished eating, Fred stood up from the table and stamped his foot in an uncharacteristically angry manner.

"What's wrong with my mother?" he asked.

"Fred, why don't you sit back down?"

"No! I won't."

Rose sighed. Without speaking, she put her hand on Fred's shoulder and guided him into the living room and onto the couch.

"Fred," she began. "I think your mother wanted to be the one to tell you this, but it's not fair to keep it from you any longer." Rose sighed. "Your father was killed in Belgium. Just recently."

Rose knew from experience that Fred would need time to process this so she resisted the urge to pull him into a hug, even though it took all her self-control.

"He's dead?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry."

"I don't remember him," Fred said. "I was three when he left."

"Oh," Rose said. Her eyes were hot with tears and her nose stung.

"I was looking forward to meeting him," Fred said and now Rose couldn't fight it any longer and pulled him in close to her as he began to sob. She didn't know what to say to him so she merely held him as he cried.

By the time Fred's grandparents finally arrived, it was after ten and Fred had fallen asleep against Rose's shoulder. Fred's grandfather looked especially despondent, but insisted that it was too dark for Rose to be walking home alone and offered to drive her instead. "He was such a good kid," he kept saying as he drove. Then he fell silent for several moments, finally adding, "I suppose he was a man. A good man." Rose wasn't sure what to say so she just nodded. She nodded again when the older man dropped her off outside her house, thanking her for taking such good care of his grandson. Now that the burden of being the only functioning adult at the Zimmetti residence had been lifted, Rose felt herself reverting back to childhood. She could hardly stand to accept what had happened—what was happening—to Fred and so she didn't, hardly interacting with his grandfather, a tangible reminder of Fred's enormous loss.

Rose leaned her forehead against her front door and fiddled with the house key in her pocket. She was not ready to go in yet. As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard screams and moaning and immediately jumped backward. She clutched her keys more tightly and looked from side to side. There was nothing there. She put her ear to the door and heard nothing more. She had imagined it, had imagined the horror and sadness of that house into audible presences. She couldn't sleep there tonight. Not with the ghosts of her mother and Mr. Zimmetti floating around her head. There was too much space in the house for the ghosts to fill, too many places for them to lodge themselves and hide. A light was on at Daniel's house—or Daniel's father's house, she corrected herself. Daniel didn't live there anymore. This didn't stop her from trudging over there, but this time she knocked on the front door instead of the second floor window. Daniel's father opened the door, bleary-eyed but fully dress.

"Hi, Ed. Do you think I can sleep here tonight?"

"Of course," Ed said with admirable enthusiasm, given the late hour.

"I'm really sorry about this," Rose said, still standing outside the door.

"No, no." Ed shook his head and gestured for Rose to come in.

Once instead, Rose began to cry silently. Ed furrowed his brow and for a moment it seemed that he might ask Rose what was going on. He did not, however, much to her relief.

"It's no trouble at all," he said. "At least you're coming in the front door now instead of the window."

Rose smiled slightly.

"It'll be all right, dear," Ed said, patting her on the arm. "It'll be all right."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 _Song accompaniment: Human of the Year, Regina Spektor_

Daniel tried to ignore the stares of the other diner patrons by concentrating on what his father was saying, which, as his father was talking about vertical integration, was easier said than done. Daniel didn't blame him for the boring subject matter. His father had never been a big talker and didn't have much practice in carrying a conversation. The task was falling to him now, though. Daniel was too distracted by the feeling of twenty strangers' eyes on him to contribute much of anything and Rose, in uncharacteristic fashion, had hardly spoken in the last half hour.

It was May twentieth, almost two weeks after VE Day, and Daniel had just been released from the hospital. That morning, his father and Rose had arrived to take him back to Goldham, making him feel like a child being collected from school. After months of desperately wanting out of the hospital, Daniel had now realized he was afraid to leave. He could walk and was no longer dependent on a wheelchair, but he still used a crutch to steady himself and his movements were both slow and jerky. Each step forward looked and felt more like a lurch. On days where he spent a lot of time on his feet—or, more honestly, foot—his right prosthesis bowed out to the side prominently by the evening, the remaining portion of his limb growing more and more sore and less and less willing to bear weight. People at the hospital were used to this kind of thing. People outside, not so much.

When Rose and Daniel's father rounded the hospital corridor, Daniel had to remind himself that this was a happy occasion. He had stood up to greet them, hoping to impress them with the relative ease with which he did this. Before he could say anything, Rose was hugging him tightly, her head pressed into his chest, making her look more like a child seeking solace in a familiar person than like an adult seeing a friend for the first time in months. Recently, Rose had started a second, weekend job as a waitress at Goldham's only restaurant. She hadn't said anything to Daniel about money but he assumed that she hadn't taken up the job out of any great love for food service. Either way, the job had prevented Rose from coming to visit Daniel and he had missed her even more than he expected to. He supposed she must have felt the same way.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, releasing him from the hug but still standing close enough that he couldn't see her expression unless she looked up at him, which she did not. "I'm just happy you're getting out."

"You look good, son," his father said, moving forward to pat him hard on the arm.

"I feel good," Daniel said, sticking to the script. "Excited to be going home."

"Let's go then," Rose said abruptly. She reached for Daniel's army duffle and slung it over her shoulder. "I can take this."

Daniel considered protesting but decided against it. He didn't need something hanging off him to upset his balance any further. Still, he was thankful when his father took the bag from Rose, shaking his head.

"We can't let a young lady carry that. Not when there are two able men around."

Rose looked annoyed, but Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. Having a woman carry heavy objects for you was a sure sign of feebleness.

When Daniel's father suggested they go out for a celebratory lunch in the city, Rose looked at Daniel warily. She seemed to understand his discomfort without him having to say anything. Daniel didn't want to saddle his father with this knowledge, though, so he just nodded at Rose and agreed.

The staring had started as soon as they walked through the diner's wide doors. Daniel was wearing his uniform, which he supposed was attention-grabbing, and he knew his crutch made a noise as it hit the floor—a noise that sometimes sounded deafening to him. Still, he had not expected everyone to notice him so quickly, or to care so much once they did. As he took a few more steps, people began to clap. Even though they were clearly looking at him, he didn't think he was doing anything to merit applause and looked from side to side, expecting to see a celebrity or politician standing just behind him.

"They're clapping for you," Rose whispered in his ear.

"Oh." Daniel let out a burst of air that sounded like a breathy laugh, but felt more like the gasp that a person expels after being punched in the stomach. He decided to lean into the laugher, even though he didn't find anything particularly funny about the current situation. He chuckled hollowly and waved, catching the watery eye of an older woman, who quickly turned away and took out a handkerchief. He wondered if she had lost a son in the war.

Eventually the clapping died down but the staring continued. Daniel was sure Rose and his father could feel it almost as much as he could and that this was the cause of his father's persistent chatter. After at least ten minutes of pontificating on the business acumen of Henry Ford, Daniel's father looked like even he couldn't stand the sound of his voice any longer. He stood up quickly, calling over his shoulder, "Shouldn't the waitress have come over by now? I think she should have. I'll go get her."

Daniel jumped as he felt Rose's hand slide into his. He had almost forgotten she was there, even though she was sitting right next to him.

"How are you doing with all this?" she asked.

"I'm good, yeah. Really good. It'll be nice to go home."

"It's okay to be nervous."

Rose sounded like she was talking to one of her second graders, but the look in her eyes was so kind that Daniel wasn't bothered.

"I'm fine," Daniel said. "How are you, though? You seem… I don't know."

"Sorry. I'll shape up."

"Oh no, that's not what I meant." The last thing Daniel had wanted to do was chastise Rose. "Shape up how?"

"You know. Just really be here, instead of… elsewhere."

Rose was still holding Daniel's hand but her grasp had gone limp and she didn't seem to really be looking at him, but rather through him.

"Rose, do you want to talk about it?"

Rose blinked rapidly, like she was trying to bring Daniel's face back into focus. "It's not a big deal," she said. "I've just been thinking of things."

Daniel thought he knew what "things" she was thinking about and squeezed her hand. Rose smiled slightly and gestured with her head to where Daniel's father was approaching with the waitress.

"All right," she said. "Fresh start." She sighed and then plastered on a grin, nodding to Daniel to encourage him to do the same. By the time Daniel's father reached the table, both Daniel and Rose were smiling broadly.

"Have you two been telling jokes while I've been gone?" he asked, as if Daniel and Rose were mischievous children instead of grown adults.

Daniel bristled at this and wondered when he had developed so much impatient toward his own father. He reminded himself that his father was a thoughtful man who said thoughtful things when he was not required to say them too often. Thankfully, Daniel's father was soon relieved of this burden. Rose had been serious about her fresh start and filled the silence admirably. She talked about her students and her job at the little Goldham café, making both sound equally interesting. She told Daniel about various things she and his father had been doing together over the past few months, calling on Daniel's father to fill in the gaps in her story just often enough to make him feel included but not overwhelmed. Daniel was surprised to hear how much time Rose and his father had been spending together. It sounded like they shared meals most nights and that Daniel's father visited Rose at the café regularly to, as Rose put it, "save me from Mr. Hummel, who always leers at me while he picks food out of his teeth."

"And the teeth are outside of his mouth, Daniel. That's a very important point to understand. The man sits there cleaning his teeth like you'd clean an old carburetor."

As usual, Daniel's father understood more than he made apparent. He kept looking from Rose to Daniel with pleased astonishment. When Rose got up to use the restroom, Daniel's father leaned across the table toward him and whispered, even though Rose was not there to overhear, "She's been so unhappy. I think you coming home has really raised her spirits." He began to look wistful. "You know how it is to lose a parent. Life goes on but…" Daniel's father made a whooshing sound. "It's hard."

Daniel noticed tears forming in his father's eyes—he still grew misty anytime he talked about his former wife—and wanted to say something encouraging. Before he could think of anything, though, he was distracted by a group of three GIs, all wearing their dress uniforms just as he was, walking into the diner. Finally, someone else to deflect some of the attention. He put his fork down and raised his hands to clap, but no one else in the diner reacted at all. He looked from side to side, waiting for the other customers to notice the men. His eyes caught Rose's as she was returning from the bathroom and he could tell they were both realizing the same thing. That the clapping wasn't about his service, it was about his leg, his crutch. That it wasn't about anything he'd done or earned. And that it would be like this for the rest of his life.

"Slide in," Rose said when she came back to the table.

She had been sitting on the inside of their booth and Daniel had stood up to let her out earlier, but now he did as he was told and watched as Rose switched their plates so each of them had the right meal. He wondered if she was trying to prevent him from having to stand up and expose himself even more to people in the restaurant. This was considerate of her, but it made Daniel feel patronized.

"I could have stood up to let you in," he said.

"I know that," Rose said.

She placed her hand on top of his again, but Daniel pulled away.

Rose continued to fill the silence at the table, but there was a forced quality to her speech now that bothered Daniel. He wanted to tell her to just be quiet, but knew that would have been unfair. She was doing this for him after all.

Eventually, the waitress came back to their table, cleared their plates, and told them to have a great day.

"We haven't paid yet," Daniel's father reminded her.

"It's on the house," the waitress said.

"Why?" Daniel asked.

The waitress looked nervous as she turned to face him. Daniel noticed her eyes dart under the table to his legs and then back up.

"You served, didn't you, sir?"

"Yes, I did but we can pay our bill.'

"It's fine, sir. It's covered."

"I understand that," Daniel said, trying to keep his voice from rising. "But I don't want it to be covered." He pointed to a table on the other side of the restaurant where the three GIs were talking and laughing, enjoying their ability to pass through a crowd without attracting much notice. Daniel had thought he was like them, that they were all experiencing the same thing after coming home, but he had been wrong. "Are they getting a free meal too?" he asked.

"Uh, not that I know of, but they could."

"That's not the point," Daniel said so quietly that he wasn't sure the waitress had even heard him.

She stood there looking at him as if waiting for him to say something else. When he didn't, she smiled widely, repeated her desire for them to have a good day, and walked away.

Daniel's father looked at him nervously. It was a similar look to the one the waitress had given him moments earlier. Why was everyone so nervous around him? They seemed to think he was somehow dangerous, but knew that they couldn't do anything to stop or reprimand him because that would be an inappropriate way to treat a cripple like him. He sensed that his father wanted him to say something about what had just happened, to put some positive spin or cap on the incident, but he wasn't going to. Why should his father get to feel good about what had just happened when he felt so terrible? He watched the waitress approach the table of GIs with a smile on her face, a real one it seemed. One of the GIs said something to her and she began to laugh, touching him on the arm in a flirtatious manner. Then she withdrew her hand and reached into her apron pocket for a slip of paper which she put down on the table—the check. Obviously, it was not about service then, but about pity. He could provide for himself, he thought as his Sunday school teacher's words rang in his head. _I suppose it might be hard to provide for a woman now._ He was not a charity case.

"Hang on a minute," Rose said.

She got up from the table and approached the waitress, talking to her for quite some time. Neither woman turned to look at him, but Daniel saw the waitress's eyes peak out at him over Rose's shoulder. Then, Rose and the waitress returned to the table, a triumphant look on Rose's face.

"I'm sorry, sir," the waitress said. "Here's your bill."

"Thank you," Daniel said.

As they left the diner, Daniel watched Rose and his father smile at each other as if Rose had just solved that problem once and for all, as if this wasn't the way he was going to be treated from now on.

"What did you say to her?" he asked Rose.

"I just explained that it was important to you to pay the bill."

"I had already said that."

"Yeah, but I just explained it further."

"I don't want you to do that kind of thing."

"Okay."

"No, I mean, I really don't want you to do that, Rose."

"Yeah, I get it, Daniel. I'm sorry. I won't."

Daniel had stopped Rose just a few steps outside the diner and his father had stopped a few steps ahead of them, looking back with concern. Now Rose began to walk again as if the conversation were over, but turned as Daniel continued to speak.

"It just makes the whole thing worse, that they listen to you more than they listen to me. About me."

Rose looked like this thought had never occurred to her.

"You're right," she said. "Of course you're right. I'm sorry, Daniel."

"And the fact that you wouldn't know that right off the bat…" Daniel said, his voice full of disgust. "You're just like the rest of them."

Rose flinched and took a step backward. She looked at Daniel with a mix of sadness and fury, as if he had hit her, and for a second he felt compelled to apologize to her, although the feeling quickly dissipated.

"Oh, okay," she said. "Well, I'll try my best not to bother you on the drive home."

After that, none of them even tried to fill the silence. Rose sat in the back seat with her arms crossed, while Daniel sat in the front, steely-faced. He noticed his father's eyes flitting between the road and the rear-view mirror, checking on Rose. Sometimes his father's eyes would dart over to him as well. When this happened, they were full of disappointment. For his part, Daniel did not look at Rose through the mirror or turn around. He was angry and determined to stay that way. Other than one quick glance right after they got in the car, he had not looked at her the entire ride, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the road in order to avoid catching a glimpse of her in the side mirror either. He was sure if he actually saw Rose, looked at her and remembered everything that she was and everything that they'd shared, he would not be able to stay mad. He had never been able to in the past—not with Rose. Daniel tried to ignore these thoughts. If Rose was going to act like everyone else—to make him feel useless, like he couldn't fight his own battles—then he was going to think of her like everyone else. No free passes. He let the anger swirl around inside of him, purposefully fostering its growth, until they reached Goldham and he finally allowed himself to look at Rose.

She had fallen asleep, her head bouncing against the window as the car traversed Goldham's bumpy roads. Daniel couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw tears sliding out from behind her closed eyelids. He wondered how much she was sleeping these days, with teaching and waitressing and still grieving her mother. Rose had always said she didn't need to sleep as much as other people, but Daniel knew this was a lie. Everyone needed to sleep. It was just that not everyone got to. A great swell of guilt began to rise within him. Daniel thought about how selfish a person would have to be to add to the troubles of a cash-strapped young woman who had just lost her mother. He wondered if this new touchiness would forever be part of him now. Maybe it had always been there, ready to show itself at the slightest instance of adversity.

Daniel was now watching Rose so intently that he didn't realize the car had stopped in the driveway of his old house until his father cleared his throat loudly. Rose didn't notice either and remained sleeping soundly in the back.

"Rose," Daniel said, tapping her knee gently. "We're here."

Rose woke with a deep gasp, as if she had been having a bad dream. She frowned at the look of concern on Daniel's face and got out of the car without saying anything. By the time Daniel had climbed out as well—it still took him a while to maneuver himself in and out of a low seated position—Rose had already taken his army sack out of the trunk and walked straight into his house, leaving Daniel and his father to follow her. When she had placed the bag down, she turned to leave, looking over her shoulder to say, "Welcome home, Daniel," before heading back out the door.

"Wait," Daniel called after her, following her outside. "I'll walk you home."

"It's right there." Rose pointed at her house, a mere hundred yards away.

"I know. I just thought we could talk."

Rose nodded and began to walk at a pace slightly slower than Daniel had seen her use before. He assumed this was for his benefit. Despite his claims of wanting to talk, now that he and Rose were alone he wasn't sure what to say.

"I can't believe you talked us out of free meal," he finally said.

"Excuse me? I thought that's what you wanted."

"It was but that was before I saw the bill. Jeez. I guess prices have gone up since I left home."

Rose narrowed her eyes, her face relaxing slightly as a smile crept across Daniel's face.

"I'm so sorry, Rosie." Daniel's face grew serious. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. It was nice of you to talk to the waitress. I'm grateful."

"Oh," Rose said. "You don't have to be. I see what you meant about… well, I understand why you were frustrated and I'm sorry.

"It's okay."

"Yeah, but, I am sorry, Daniel."

"Don't worry about it. I'll try to be less sensitive."

"You don't have to."

"Well, I'm going to. And, Rose, you're not like all the rest of them. At all."

"Yeah," Rose said. "I know that." She smiled at Daniel. "I'll let you get settled at home, but come over some time, okay?"

Daniel nodded and watched Rose's smile disappear behind the door as she closed it slowly.

They spent most of that summer together, whenever they could at least. While Daniel found himself frustratingly idle, Rose was often busy, or trying to find ways to be so. The day school ended, Daniel showed up to Rose's house bearing gifts of beer and cake only to find her changing into her waitress uniform. When Rose wasn't working, she was often talking about working, about trying to get more hours.

"I'm sorry," she said one day as she and Daniel sat by the algae-green pond behind her house. "I don't mean to imply that I'm not enjoying this. I just could be working, you know?"

"I understand. I know I'm not the most important exciting person to spend time with."

"Don't put yourself down, Daniel."

From some people, this would have been a gentle attempt to make Daniel feel better about himself. From Rose, it was a firm demand, which he actually found far more reassuring.

"Right," he said. "If you're having troubles with money, I'd be happy to help you out."

"Oh no," Rose said. Aside from complaints about not being able to work enough, she had refused to talk about her monetary situation, although Daniel assumed that her mother's illness had something to do with the position Rose found herself in. "I couldn't ask that of you."

"Well, you wouldn't be asking. I'm offering. It could even be a loan, if you want, so you don't feel strange about it."

"Thank you, Daniel, but I don't think so."

Daniel decided not to push the issue further, not wanting to make Rose feel like a charity case. Despite his offers of help, he himself was feeling more and more like a charity case every day. The government compensation for wounded soldiers—ten dollars a month—was hardly enough to support himself and he was still living with his father and struggling to find a job. Before the war, he had been interested in working as a detective or some sort of law enforcement, but every agency he interviewed with now cited "concerns about mobility" and dismissed his application. Eventually, he resorted to applying for work at the same auto parts company his father worked for.

"We usually start you boys off as travelling salesmen," the owner of the company had said.

"I'd be fine with that," Daniel said. "I've saved up some money for a car and—"

The hiring manager cut him off. "You'd have to travel a fair distance. All across the state, sometimes into Massachusetts and Connecticut as well."

"That wouldn't be a problem."

"We feel that it might," the hiring manager said, looking pointedly at Daniel's crutch.

To pass the time while everyone else was at work, Daniel threw himself into home repair, fixing everything from creaky stairs to unreliable stoves. He had worked on bomb diffusion during the war and was now able to fix just about anything that didn't require him to stand on a ladder. He wished his uniformly uninterested potential employers could see him at work. He had even applied for a job at a local factory but been told that all the workers on the line were women.

"That'll change when the men get back," the male foreman had said. "But for now, we don't really want to mix a man in with all of them. It's bad for productivity. You know how women can be. Completely controlled by hormones. They get distracted."

Daniel tried to hide a smirk, thinking of the various infuriated responses Rose might give to this line.

"And with so few men around, you'd be surprised what these ladies will go for now," the man said looking Daniel up and down without a hint of embarrassment.

That afternoon, Daniel had sent his father's collection of tools flying across the garage in frustration, then fixed the dripping kitchen sink, cleaned up all the tools—in the process, devising what he saw as a much more efficient organizational system—and scrubbed at the house's bathroom floor until it shone. Before his father returned home, he also practiced walking up and down the long set of stairs to his bedroom, a process that he still found quite difficult, and executed fifty one-armed pushups with his right arm so that the strength in his arms did not become unbalanced due to always supporting himself with the crutch in his left arm.

When his father asked Daniel how his day had been, he responded with somewhat excessive and put-on enthusiasm, "Really productive. I rearranged all your tools. I hope you don't mind. I can show you the new system tonight."

"That's all right," his father had said. "You're the one who uses them now."

When Daniel had completed all conceivable repairs to his father's house, he moved on to Rose's place, often letting himself in while she was at work. He knew he was probably crossing a boundary here so the idea was to be discreet and get out before Rose could come home and find him. One day, she returned from work earlier than expected and found him cleaning her refrigerator. Daniel had expected her to scold him for coming into her house uninvited, but she didn't. In fact, she seemed completely unfazed.

"Oh hello," she said. "I have to be up for opening tomorrow so I'm going to bed."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Eh, you do what you want," she said, ascending the stairs to her bedroom. Then she walked halfway back down and said, "You'll find something, Daniel. A job, I mean. Any employer would be lucky to have you."

"Thanks, Rose. But most of them don't seem to see it that way."

"Then they're idiots and I'd gladly tell them that if you'd like me to."

"Probably best not to."

"All right. You tell me if you change your mind." Then Rose disappeared upstairs, calling down, "Good night. Stay as long as you like. The stove could use a good cleaning too if you feel so inspired."

For Daniel, that summer was defined by joblessness and rejection on the one hand and time spent with Rose on the other, usually sitting outside by some body of water and watching her fall asleep from exhaustion. Puncturing this bubble were several events of international significance. On August 6th and 9th, the U.S. dropped atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an event that left Daniel feeling both sick and excited. Then, on August 14th, 1945, the Japanese surrendered to the Allies, ending World War II.

Rose heard about it first, on a radio at the diner, and came running through Daniel's front door, not even bothering to knock.

"It's over," she yelled.

"What's over?"

"The war. The Japanese surrendered. It's all over. Our boys are coming home."

For a while, Daniel just stood there. He had never heard Rose use the popular phrase, "our boys" to describe the men fighting overseas, but he supposed that a day like this made everyone feel patriotic and with patriotism came a sense of ownership. The promised surrender had been what Daniel had used to justify the bombings in his own mind and he had expected to be overjoyed at the news. Instead, he found himself thinking about all the friends he had lost in the war—some of them men he hadn't even liked too well until they were hunkered down in a foxhole together—and all the families that were forever changed and how he was forever changed, even though that was something he preferred not to contemplate as it made him feel self-pitying. From here, his mind traveled to all the men who did not die and the families that were about to be reunited. He thought of a young kid in his unit who was only eighteen when he signed up and who talked so incessantly about his mother and little sisters that the other men would get fed up. He hoped Tommy had made it to the end of the war in order to enjoy that reunion, his consideration of the alternative bringing his thoughts back around full-circle. Unsure of how he was supposed to feel, he split the difference by feeling nothing.

"There's so much to say, isn't there?" Rose said before falling silent. Then she hugged him for a long time and Daniel didn't realize that he had begun to cry until Rose looked up at him, her facing swimming in his field of vision.

The official celebrations were held on September 2nd, the day representatives of the emperor signed the surrender treaty. The diner was closed for the holiday and Rose and Daniel had spent much of the day walking around town, drinking cheap champagne and making mostly good-natured fun of the pontificating councilmen who seemed to be giving speeches on every street corner. That night, they sat in the small field between their houses. It was really too chilly to be sitting still out of doors for too long but sitting in Daniel's room just the two of them no longer felt appropriate. In the distance, they could hear firecrackers going off. The louder ones reminded Daniel of exploding artillery shells and made him jump. The second time this happened, Rose grabbed Daniel's hand.

"It's okay," she whispered.

"Yeah, I know," Daniel said, smiling at Rose but still feeling on edge.

When the fifth or so firecracker went off, Rose squeezed Daniel's hand so hard it hurt. When he looked over at her, he saw that she was shaking violently.

"Are you cold?" he asked. Rose was already wrapped in a blanket.

"No," she said quietly. "I just don't like them either."

"Oh," Daniel said, remembering why this might be. Images of her father's gun flashed before his eyes, even though he had never actually seen it, just constructed a picture in his head. Gradually, Daniel felt himself being transported back to one of Goldhamn's most dramatic events in recent memory.

On December 20th, 1933, two people were shot at the Tobin household. Mrs. Tobin's wound was superficial, the bullet just grazing her shoulder. Mr. Tobin was shot in the abdomen, but the bullet amazingly missed all major arteries and organs. It was the daughter, Rose, who suffered the worst injuries, despite being the only family member to not be shot. Mrs. Tobin told the police there had been an attempted robbery, that her husband had surprised the would-be burglars and that they had reacted by shooting first him and then her, although she had fled, almost escaping the bullet's path. No one—not the police or the people who read about the incident later in the paper—understood why the assailants had beaten the little girl so severely, landing her in the hospital for a week, but it was a sensitive, horrible thing that no one wanted to think about for too long, so they chose not to say anything.

After the incident, Daniel visited Rose in the hospital every day, more to assure himself that she was still there than anything else. She was usually asleep when he arrived and he would spend the whole visit sitting next to her bed with her mother, squinting in order to make out the rising and falling of her chest, to determine that she was still breathing. Her whole body was various shades of gray—dark gray, almost black, where the bruises were, light gray and clammy like a wet rock everywhere else. She looked terrible, but not in a way that Daniel would have been able to describe with any precision today. He supposed he had blocked the details from his mind. Now he wondered if Rose had ever been able to do so.

On her second day in the hospital, she had woken up with a scream, startling Daniel out of his reverie. Her mother was out, having left for a coffee that she insisted on getting herself even though Daniel had offered to get it for her.

"You're okay, Rosie," Daniel said, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Rose winced at the touch and Daniel immediately felt guilty.

"I was trying to kill him," she said and Daniel didn't have to ask who she meant. He just nodded, trying to think of what to say next. Before he could, Rose had fallen back asleep.

Many years later, Rose would close the final door on that chapter of her life, changing her last name from Tobin to Flanagan, her mother's maiden name. Daniel had viewed Rose's name change as a way to fully bury her past, but had since learned that life did not work this way. As his right leg throbbed a painful reminder of this lesson, he wrapped an arm around Rose and held her tightly.


	6. Chapter 6

_CN: description of abuse, brief discussion of suicidal ideation_

 _Less important notes: This is a mammoth chapter! Also, there's a Peggy appearance_

Chapter 6

 _Song accompaniment: One More Time with Feeling, Regina Spektor_

Rose woke up screaming, or trying to at least. Her mouth was open and her lungs were filled with air ready to be expelled, but no matter how hard she strained she couldn't make a sound. She wasn't intending to cry out for help—there was no one around to come to her aid, anyway—just to drown out the crack of the bullets being fired outside her window. After several deep, slow breaths, she was finally able to speak, which she did calmly, the urge to yell gone. She got up from her bed and looked out her window to see a car back-firing on the street.

"It's not a gun," she whispered to herself in order to make this fact seem as real as possible.

Even twelve years after that horrible night with her father, Rose was still uncomfortable around loud noises and her mother's death had left her feeling more vulnerable to old memories and the dreams they brought with them. The night that her father finally left for good, finally took things too far, had started harmlessly enough—or comparatively so. He had come home drunk and angry and ready to start a fight. As usual, Rose heard him bumping around downstairs and went to confront him, trying to deflect his anger from her mother. Not as usual, this time the deflection worked. Usually, Rose had to watch her father smack her mother around a bit before she could get him sufficiently agitated to come after her instead. This time, he came at her before she even said anything.

"You," he said. "You're always just standing there, aren't you? Always watching me, judging me."

"Yep," Rose said.

At the same time, her mother said, "No one's judging you, John. She's not doing anything wrong."

"Oh yes she is," Rose's father said, bounding toward her.

Rose was only ten and her father was more than twice her size, but, as the big man rushed her, she smiled, knowing that, for the first time ever, her mother would be spared his wrath. She kept smiling even as her father grabbed her arm so hard that she worried he would bore his fingers straight through it. He tightened his grip even more and began to drag her upstairs, jerking her so hard she fell on her face. Jumping back up, Rose heard her mother yelling.

"John, what are you doing? Where are you taking her?"

Once Rose's father got her back in her room, he closed the door and locked it behind him.

"You're just always there," he said, shaking Rose hard. "I don't know how it happened. I didn't want you."

Rose said nothing. She looked directly into her father's eyes, trying not to reveal the fear that was steadily growing inside of her. Getting beaten herself was better than watching her mother being brutalized day after day but it was not without its own drawbacks.

When he hit her in the face—harder and more directly than ever before—she fell backwards, smashing the back of her head against the hardwood floor. Tears streamed from her eyes and she let out an involuntary gasp.

"John! John, what are you doing? We can talk about this."

Her mother was pounding frantically against the door, but her father hardly reacted. Rose wondered if he even heard her or if he was so caught up in the task at hand that all other noise was drowned out for him. Her awareness of anything happening outside of the room quickly disappeared as her father punched her again. And then again and then again. Her cheekbones began to feel like they were caving into her skull. She forgot that this was a good thing, that she was providing a useful distraction and protecting her mother in the process. All she could think of now was the pain. Her field of vision became mostly black as her eyes swelled, flashes of whiteness appearing now and again. Soon she realized that the whiteness was her father's fist. For a moment, the fist's pounding stopped. Rose heard her father standing up—he had been kneeling next to her before—and then felt a stabbing pain in her stomach as he kicked her hard in the ribs. This proceeded just as the punches had, with Rose trying to count how many times he had kicked her and eventually giving up as her whole consciousness was consumed by pain. _Stop,_ she thought, but did not say. It wouldn't have done any good.

Then there was a noise like wood breaking and suddenly her mother was in the room too, pulling her father away from her. It was the first time Rose had ever seen her mother fight back against her father. She couldn't see much else but she could hear slaps and punches and groans. Then, the pop of a gunshot and the thud of her mother falling to the ground.

Rose could hardly see through her terror and blackening eyes, but she could make out a black shiny object on the floor by her father's right foot. The gun. He had dropped it and was paying no attention. Instead, he was standing over Rose's mother's motionless body, staring at her, seemingly as shocked by her attack on him as Rose was. Rose crawled forward as quietly as she could, grinding her teeth to keep herself from crying out in pain. She felt the gun in her hands before she saw it. Then she lifted it, called her father's name, and shot

The bullet hit him in the stomach and he fell backward, away from her mother. Rose stood with effort, the shooting pain in her ribs making this almost unbearable. She leaned over her father, towering over his prone form in a thrilling role reversal. He was blinking rapidly, lifting his head to look at the bloody hole in his abdomen. He was powerless and looked like he knew it. Rose smiled and aimed the gun at his forehead.

"Rose, no," her mother called from behind her.

Rose spun around to see her mother sitting up and clutching her shoulder. Rose's knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor, overcome with relief.

"This isn't the way," her mother said.

Rose nodded and turned back to her father. She managed to remain in a kneeling position so that she was still able to look down on him. "I'll kill you," she said. "I want you to leave and if you ever come back here, I will kill you."

Rose heard her mother stifle a sob as the world in front of her began to blur. Her eyes were almost entirely shut now and her jaw and temples were throbbing. Her head felt detached from the rest of her body and she kept expecting it to fall off her neck and begin rolling around on the floor. She felt this beginning to happen, noting it with detached interest rather than fear. Then her whole body was on the ground. And the ground was softer than it had been before, warmer. She pried her eyes open and found she was lying in her mother's arms. She had dropped the gun but had not heard it clatter against the floor. Content, she closed her eyes, hearing her mother say, "You stay where you are. Come any closer and I'll shoot."

The next thing Rose knew she was waking up in the hospital, her mother seated beside her with her arm in sling. Daniel's father was there too, sitting next to her mother, while Daniel had fallen asleep in a seated position on the floor, his back leaning against the wall. When she had recovered enough to speak, her mother told her that her father was gone and promised her it was for good this time. Her mother also instructed her to tell the police there had been a robbery.

"What really happened is no one's business but ours," she said. "You did nothing wrong, honey. Absolutely nothing. But it's easier not having to explain it to outsiders."

Rose had agreed to this. When she was ready to return home, her mother showed her the place in the backyard where she had buried the gun.

For the next month, Rose was too sore to climb the tree outside Daniel's room, but Daniel came to visit her every day and gave her a book of Morse code and a very bright flashlight so they could send each other messages late at night. Rose got the feeling that Daniel enjoyed using the code even though he tried to give off the impression that it was all for her benefit.

"I'll be right here, Rosie. If you have a bad dream or get scared in the middle of the night, you just flash your light and I'll wake up. I promise."

He had kept his promise too, even though Rose hadn't actually expected him to. It seemed like a lot to ask, but every time she shone her flashlight in his direction, it was enough to wake him and soon he would be there at his window, visible as a bright beam of light.

Now that Rose was an adult and her father had been gone for years, she didn't need to wake Daniel up with a flashlight, but sometimes she wished she could. Her nightmares had been intensifying for months. But Daniel was no longer there for her to wake up whether she wanted to or not. He had finally found a job. A good one too. Some secret branch of the police that he couldn't talk about too much. A secret branch based out of New York City. Daniel had now been gone for over a month. He had missed Rose's twenty-third birthday for a mandated training period, which she hadn't minded too much. She had never made a big deal out of her birthday anyway, but she did miss him.

School had started again and her new batch of students was somewhat tiring, but also wonderful. She was tired all the time and was growing used to it. After school, she went and worked at the diner until closing. On Fridays, she'd work until closing, then get up early Saturday morning for the opening. When she did get to sleep, she was usually awoken by troublesome visions of her past. The previous week, a bill collector had visited her and explained to her how her house would be seized if she continued to fall behind on the payment of her mother's staggering medical bills. It was only November and, Rose had convinced herself, still fairly warm so she had started to keep her heat turned off in order to save money on gas. She also rarely turned her lights on, relying instead on the sun or the old flashlight Daniel had given her. Some nights, Rose would wake up unable to breath and reach for the flashlight as if that would somehow help.

She looked around at her fellow teachers and at the mothers of her students and marveled at how much more easily they seemed to move through the world than she did. Plenty of them had lost family in the war. Others were adjusting to husbands, brothers, sons returning completely different from the way they had left. As the men returned home and started needing jobs, women were being fired left and right. The theory was that their husbands were now back home and able to provide for them, but no one took into account the alarming number of new widows. Rose knew that plenty of the women in town had money troubles, but all of them seemed to be handling them better than she was.

Everyone appeared to be handling their various losses better than Rose as well. The first time she saw Mrs. Zimmetti in town after that horrible telegram, Rose had gone out of her way to say hello and be friendly, but this seemed to make Mrs. Zimmetti uncomfortable so the next time Rose saw her she made due with a feeble wave. Still, Mrs. Zimmetti was out and about, carrying on with her life. Rose supposed she, herself, was too but she wasn't always sure she wanted to be. Sometimes, she wished she could jump into the pond behind her house and never come back up. These feelings frightened her, though, so she tried not to dwell on them for too long. They also embarrassed her. Her mother had now been dead for over six months and Rose felt that she should have been over her by now, or at least more over her than she was. Then again, another part of Rose considered such a thing traitorous. The fact that she was able to go hours, even a whole day sometimes, without thinking of her mother already left her wracked with guilt.

The summer had been better, when Daniel had been around. His presence hadn't fixed things, but he had at least been a nice distraction. And, of course, he was more than that as well. He was also a friend and a comfort. Being with him felt like home. Now that he was gone, however, Rose found it hard to know what to say to him when they were in contact. There was so much in her life she didn't want to tell him, didn't want to admit to, and there was so much in his life that he couldn't tell her, whether he wanted to or not, because it was confidential. Rose mostly solved this problem by avoiding Daniel all together. He never came home anymore, but she knew he tried to call her—mostly because Daniel was apparently starting to get worried and was asking about her whenever he called his father. Her work schedule was so erratic that she usually wasn't home when he called anyway. And when she was, she could easily use work as an excuse, or a lie. Eventually, Rose's phone line was cut off due to failure to pay her bill, a circumstance that troubled her but also had some pros, such as not having to explain herself to Daniel or any other callers. Rose was working a double shift at the diner when her boss pulled her over, saying someone was on the line for her.

"Know who?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Her boss shook his head.

"Daniel?" she asked, holding the phone to her ear.

"Hi, Rose. I haven't been able to reach you anywhere else so I figured…"

"Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I was just getting a bit worried about you."

"Daniel, I'm at work. You can't just call me here."

"Well, where else am I supposed to call you?"

"Maybe you don't have to be calling me at all," Rose said.

"Rose, are you okay?"

"Of course I am. Now, I have to go back to work."

"All right. Call me later? After your shift ends."

Rose considered protesting but decided not to. There was no sense in being rude. She knew her frustration with Daniel was unfair.

"Yeah," she said. "Fine."

She did call back after her shift was over, even though her dread at the prospect of having to talk to Daniel made her want to run away from the phone, not walk back to it.

"Rose?" Daniel picked up on the first ring. Had he been sitting by the phone all this time?

"Yeah, it's me."

"Rose, are you okay?"

Rose rolled her eyes. Daniel had already asked this question and gotten an answer. She didn't see the point in asking again. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strange hiccupping groan. Then she began to sob, so hard that she could barely breathe.

"Oh, Rose," Daniel said in a voice that might have annoyed her had she possessed the wherewithal to pay attention to such things. "Why don't you come to the city? Get out of there for a while?"

"I can't do that. Not now. Things are… bad, they're really bad. I need to work."

"You could come just for a weekend. That couldn't hurt so much. Besides, I'm worried that if you stay there… I don't know, you might get in trouble somehow."

Rose thought of her desire to let the scummy pond water wash over her, to cradle her as she sunk into it.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. I just think you should come."

Rose paused. She agreed that she needed to get out, or else. But she couldn't imagine making that happen.

"I can't afford the bus fare," she finally said.

"I can cover that. You'll let me do that, right? Consider it part of that graduation present I never got you."

Rose had agreed and a week later she found herself stepping off a grimy bus in Union Station. The first thing that caught her eye were the sunflowers in Daniel's hand as they were so incongruous with the smoky, dirty, diesel smell that surrounded them. Even though she was already looking straight at him, Daniel waved at her anyway, with the flower hand, creating a vibrant yellow arc against the gray backdrop of buildings and overcast sky.

"These are for you," he said, handing her the flowers and then quickly taking her suitcase before she could stop him.

"Thanks, Daniel. That's sweet."

"Anything for you, kiddo," Daniel said, awkwardly draping his suitcase-laden arm around her so that her bag bumped her uncomfortably on the shoulder.

"Don't call me kiddo," Rose said, grabbing for her bag back. "And give me that."

"I can carry it," Daniel said, reminding Rose that this likely meant more to him than she had realized.

"I know you can," she said. "But so can I." She held the sunflowers up to her nose even though they didn't smell like anything. "These are beautiful."

Back in Daniel's tiny apartment, the flowers sat in a vase on the kitchen counter.

"They really spruce the place up," Daniel said.

"Yeah, it's clear you actually bought these for yourself and were just using me as an excuse."

Rose had meant it to be funny, but saw Daniel's face fall.

"Sorry," she said "I meant that as a joke. I'm trying to be less of a sad sack. I guess I'm out of practice."

"You can be a sad sack if that's how you're feeling."

"Nah," Rose said. "That's why I left Goldham, right? To get away from all that. It was getting so boring."

"Hmm."

"Oh, come on. Stop looking at me like I'm this fragile thing and show me what you do around here."

Daniel and Rose spent the day walking—and sitting—around Central Park. Daniel's leg seemed to be bothering him, although he didn't say anything about it. Rose had to use the occasional flinches she saw out of the corner of her eye and the aborted moves to reach down and rub the place where his leg met the prosthesis as a marker. Every time Daniel began to lean down, he realized he was being watched and straightened up quickly. Rose tried not to look at him for a while to give him the opportunity to massage his sore leg, but she couldn't be sure if he took advantage of this or not. To try to help the situation, Rose suggested they stop and sit on various benches, coming up with increasingly flimsy excuses for why they should do so. Both she and Daniel knew what was really happening but it seemed to make him feel better not to directly acknowledge it. Rose was still feeling guilty for her unsuccessful attempts at flippancy—taking her suitcase back from Daniel, making fun of the flowers, etc.—and tried to make up for it by asking him about his job and life in New York. Most of what he was working on was classified so she switched to inquiring about his coworkers instead.

"They're good at what they do," Daniel said and left it at that.

Rose wanted to ask if he was friends with any of them, but thought it might make her sound like a parent asking their child if they made any friends at school. She also figured Daniel's response had answered her question well enough already.

"How are you, though, Rose?" he asked, turning to face her on the bench they were sitting on.

"I'm not…" Rose began. "I'm not great, but I really did come to get away for a bit. So, it's not something I want to talk about."

"Okay. Well, you tell me if it ever is."

Rose nodded and leaned her head against Daniel's shoulder.

"It'll get easier," he said and Rose almost believed him.

The next morning, Rose woke up early on Daniel's pull-out couch, the bars of the folding bed digging into her back and the sun shining in her eyes through his curtainless windows. She heard a sound in the kitchen and turned her head to see Daniel standing there without his crutch or prosthesis, his right pants leg rolled up to right above where his leg ended—just above where his knee would have been. Rose had only seen Daniel without the prosthetic leg once, the first time she visited him, before he had started to wear it regularly, and she had never seen his actual stump. His leg looked fairly normal—whatever that meant—just incomplete. There was slight scarring but it was faint and superficial. All in all, it looked much better than Rose had expected. Still, given Daniel's choice to usually keep this part of himself hidden from her, Rose felt like she was intruding on something private. She looked away and yawned loudly in order to announce her presence.

Daniel turned his head, registered her presence, and bent down to unroll his pants leg so quickly he almost fell over. "Sorry," he said.

It seemed that he was apologizing for his leg in some way but the idea struck Rose as so ridiculous that she couldn't quite believe it.

"For what?" she asked.

"I don't usually put it on first thing in the morning, just because it can get uncomfortable if I wear it too long, and then it feels strange to have my pants leg just dangling so that's why…" He gestured to his now covered right leg.

"Daniel, are you apologizing for showing me your leg?"

"I just didn't think you'd wake up so early. I figured I'd get up and make breakfast and then go put the leg on and then you'd wake up. In that order. Which was stupid and…"

"Daniel, stop. My point was that you don't have to apologize for that. Not ever."

"Oh." Daniel said, looking down at the floor sheepishly. "All right, then. Thanks."

Then Daniel raised his head and, for a moment, they just stared at each other with, Rose thought, a mixture of sadness and comfort. It was a look that said, "I see you. I get you," and it was a look she could not honestly share with anyone else. Daniel finally broke the spell.

"I'm still going to go put it on," he said. "Just, for me. I feel better wearing it when I'm around people."

"That's fine too."

Daniel still looked more embarrassed than Rose thought he should as he began to move toward his room, gripping furniture to steady himself. Rose was impressed by how quickly he was able to move and would have complimented him on it if she thought he would have appreciated it. She decided, however, that he would not have.

"There are pancakes on the griddle," Daniel called from his room. "Could you flip them?"

"Yep," Rose said. "Pancakes are my favorite."

"Yeah," Daniel said. "I know."

It was Sunday and they were supposed to go to a day game at Ebbets Field. Dodgers versus Yankees. Rose was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, as all sensible people with an appreciation for steady, unshowy athleticism were, while Daniel had been taken in by the razzle dazzle of the New York Yankees, a team that had the audacity to stake claim to the entire city. It was sure to be an exciting game. However, just as they were finishing breakfast, Daniel received a call from his office saying that there was some emergency and all agents were required to come in.

"I could tell them I have other plans," Daniel said, but Rose sensed he didn't really mean it.

"No, you should go in. You have to make a good impression as the new guy. That's far more important than a baseball game."

"I feel really terrible for convincing you to come all the way out here and then just leaving."

"It's fine, Daniel. I understand."

Daniel nodded and within minutes he was gone, leaving Rose with a bevy of apologies and a spare key so she could let herself in and out. For a while, Rose sat in Daniel's apartment, switching back and forth between the couch and chair—the only two pieces of furniture in the room besides a very small table—looking glum, and feeling sorry for herself. _Snap out of it,_ she told herself as she lay upside down on the chair, her legs on its back and her head inches from the floor. The joy of any city was exploring it without an agenda and Rose had explored most of New York's boroughs shamefully infrequently, given that she had gone to college in Manhattan and grown up mere hours outside of the city. She decided to make her first stop Brooklyn, the home of her beloved Dodgers, boarding several incorrect trains—all part of the adventure—before finally arriving in Flatbush. This was where Ebbets Field was but Rose had no intention of going to the game by herself. If she were honest with herself, she'd have to admit that her favorite part of rooting for the Dodgers was rooting against the Yankees and swapping trash talk back and forth with Daniel. Her mother had taught her to love baseball, but it was Daniel who had taught her to love the Dodgers when she was ten and he shared with her his love for the Yankees.

"The Yankees have no heart," she had said, having heard a radio commentator say it once before. "They've got two or three great players and that's it. The, uh, the Brooklyn Dodgers, though, that's a real team."

"Oh really?" Daniel had asked and, in an effort to stick to her guns, Rose had become a tried and true Dodgers fan then and there.

Given that history, she didn't see much point in watching the game without Daniel. Instead, she walked around the ballfield, watching the families pour in. There were many fathers there with their sons, but Rose also saw the occasional father-daughter pairing and one mother-daughter duo as well. Rose's mother had taken her to her first baseball game when she was five, before her father became enough of a tyrant to keep her mother indoors most of the time, and when Rose got older, her mother had taught her how to score a baseball game while listening to it on the radio, marking the paper up with balls and strikes and double-plays. Rose had never been especially interested in keeping score this way but she had always appreciated her mother's prowess at it. Rose felt tears gathering in her eyes as she watched the young mother and her eight or nine-year-old daughter enter the ballpark. The last game she had attended with her mother had been some dinky minor league game in the town over from Goldham before Rose even started college. It had been Rose's mother's birthday and… Rose thought about this for a moment. Today was her mother's birthday. November 8th. She would have been forty-three. And Rose had forgotten. She felt like she was going to be sick. No, she knew she was going to be sick. She ducked into an alley and vomited. Then she continued to wretch, her hands on her knees to stabilize herself. Rose felt tremendously guilty—as she should have—but she also felt terrified, like the world was somehow spinning out of control, away from her, and this made less sense. Frankly, it made her feel a bit dramatic.

Blearily, she began to walk back to the subway, having to vary her strides considerably as the sidewalk seemed to rise and fall beneath her feet. Several times, she had to stop and take a few deep breaths because she was hyperventilating. She thought a man might have winked at her on the train but she was too confused to be angry or flattered. It was hard to see what anyone was doing with their face when they were all spinning so fast. She wasn't sure how she got back to Daniel's apartment, but she managed it somehow, leaning her forehead against the door as she reached her hand into her jacket pocket for the key and felt nothing. She fished around a little more, but still nothing. She had not brought a handbag or anything else of the sort so this was the only place it could be and it wasn't there. She yelled wordlessly in anguish and sat down on the stairs that led up to Daniel's door, burying her head in between her knees.

Eventually, she stood up and began to stagger toward the telephone building she knew Daniel worked in. She wasn't sure how she was going to get in, or if she'd even be allowed to go into the office, but she figured it was better to do something about her current situation than to sit around and cry about it. As it turned out, she wasn't capable of _not_ crying about it so she had to make due with walking around and crying about it. Some people slowed down as they passed her, but no one stopped to talk to her, one of the many blessings of the city. In Goldham, she wouldn't have made it a block without someone trying to console her. Then they would go and tell their neighbors about the poor Tobin girl. Or was it Flanagan now? God knows why she changed it. She wasn't married. And how the Tobin—Flanagan—girl was found crying on the sidewalk, smack dab in the middle of the day. And how this was really not fitting behavior for a teacher. And how you had to feel for her since her mother died and all but that if she carried on that way around the children, it really was a cause for concern. Thinking of this imagined—and perhaps unfair—conversation made Rose angry and by the time she arrived at the telephone building she was crying tears of sadness and rage. Rage at the imaginary townsfolk of Goldham and rage at herself for somehow being so unable to cope with her mother's death that she was sobbing in public yet also so self-centered that she had completely forgotten the birthday of the most important person in the world to her.

Rose was contemplating her next move, when a rather glamorous woman walked by her toward the building, stopped, and then slowly walked back. She appeared to be some combination of concerned and put out, pursing her very red lips like a woman who was being delayed from a very important task but also squinting her eyes like someone assessing a situation in order to best help.

"Excuse me," the woman said. "Do you know someone who works in this building?"

"Yes." Rose sniffled, trying to compose herself. The woman really was incredibly poised and Rose shuddered to think what she must have looked like by comparison. It didn't hurt—or perhaps it didn't help—that the woman also had a British accent. That kind of thing always made a person sound classier than they really were. "I think so," Rose said. "Daniel Sousa."

The woman raised her eyebrows. "Daniel Sousa? He doesn't seem like the kind of man to leave girls crying on the street. I would have thought you were looking for Thompson or Krzeminski."

"What?"

"Nothing. Sorry. Just thinking out loud. So, Agent Sousa. Would you like me to go get him for you?"

"No!" Rose said, surprised by her answer and its vehemence. Wasn't she here with the express purpose of speaking to Daniel? "I mean… he's always seeing me like this. And I don't want him to see it again. I'm just, I'm just tired and I'm staying with him and I've locked myself out of his apartment."

"I can ask him to bring down the key."

"Yes, but…"

"But you'd rather not have him see you like this."

There was not a hint of pity in the woman's voice, which Rose appreciated. She also spoke without any sweetness. She was, instead, providing an objective assessment of the situation, treating it in a matter-of-fact manner that made Rose feel a little less ridiculous.

"Crying all the time," Rose said. "It's just not really me, or at least I don't think it is. And I don't want Daniel to start seeing me that way."

"Yes, I understand."

"I'm sorry. I guess there's nothing you can do about it. If you could tell him I'm down here, though, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"I'll tell you what," the woman said. "Why don't I go up there and tell him what's happened and then I'll bring the key down to you so he won't have to?"

"I couldn't ask that."

"Nonsense. It'll be no trouble." The woman turned her back and started to leave, but then walked back a second time. "Can I ask why Agent Sousa is in the office on a Sunday?"

"He said they got a call about some emergency case. All hands on deck."

Rose watched the woman's gaze instantly transform from friendly to steely.

"Those absolute wankers. No one told me. I was just coming in to pick up a file. Unbelievable… although, I suppose at this point, it's really not."

"Are you an agent too?"

Rose had assumed that the woman she was talking to was a secretary.

"Yes."

"I didn't know they let women be agents."

"Apparently they don't," the woman said bitterly, before switching back into a more positive, problem-solving tone. "All right. I'll go up and see what all the fuss is about and then I'll be right down with your key."

"Thank you so much."

About fifteen minutes later, the woman returned, carrying a file in one hand and a key in the other.

"Here you are," she said. "I realize I never got your name."

"Rose Flanagan."

"Peggy Carter." The woman held out her hand and Rose shook it, noting the exceptionally firm grip.

"Rose Flanagan, do you think I could buy you a cup of coffee?"

"That's very kind of you but don't you need to stay here to…"

"No one will tell me what's going on anyway," Peggy said. "How about some pie as well? I think it'd do you some good."

"Um, okay. Thank you. I don't know what to say."

"No need to say anything. I know just the place."

"Do they have tea?" Rose asked. "I'm actually more of a tea drinker."

"A woman after my own heart. Of course they do. Come on."

Then Peggy turned on her heel and Rose followed, feeling as if she'd just been swept up by a considerably more lethal Mary Poppins.

At the café, Peggy ordered two "very strong black teas" and, after consulting with Rose, two slices of cherry pie. Rose was surprised by how pleased Peggy seemed to be spending time with her. She would have considered spending time with someone like herself—a crying, hapless mess—to be a bit of a chore.

"So," Rose said. "I suppose I owe you an explanation."

"You don't owe me anything."

"I think I owe you a great deal. That was really very kind of you back there and you've just bought me the best pie I've ever eaten." Rose took another bite.

"I wasn't intending to use a slice of pie as some sort of bargaining chip," Peggy said. "Really, you don't need to tell me anything. Unless you want to."

Rose nodded. She didn't want to. She didn't think. But then she opened her mouth and realized she was speaking and at that point it was too late to do anything about it. "It's my mother's birthday," she said.

"Oh, is your mother living?"

"No, she's not."

"I'm terribly sorry to hear that."

Peggy really did look sorry as she made direct and somewhat unnerving eye contact with Rose. Rose blinked but did not look away.

"I actually forgot her birthday until just a few hours ago because I've been so wrapped up in my own selfish concerns."

"When did she die?"

"Back in March. It was so long ago, now. Over six months."

"March," Peggy repeated. "That's not so long ago. I lost someone very special to me in March as well."

"I'm sorry."

Peggy's brown eyes became watery and for a second, Rose thought she might cry but Peggy blinked quickly, pulling herself together.

"Yes, well, with the war, everyone's lost people so I tell myself that it's best to just get on with it."

"I say that to myself too."

Peggy looked at Rose with that same intense gaze, looking far more vulnerable this time. "And does it work?" she asked.

Rose nearly laughed. To answer, she gestured to her tear-stained face—she had washed it in the bathroom, but it had been so red, she had to assume her previous meltdown was still fairly obvious.

"Yes," Peggy said. "It doesn't work well for me either." Now, Peggy looked away, staring at the window as people walked by. "My brother died too. Earlier in the war."

"I'm so sorry."

"Oh," Peggy said, as if she hadn't expected a reaction to this piece of news. Perhaps she hadn't meant to reveal this in the first place, just as Rose had not intended to speak about her mother. "Thank you. I mention it to say that when it's a family member it feels different. Not better, not worse. But different. When it's someone you fought with… You of course know that anyone in war could die."

"But I imagine that doesn't make it any easier."

"No, it doesn't."

Rose couldn't tell if Peggy's eyes had welled up again or if they just looked clouded through the tears that were obscuring her own vision. She felt an immediate and perhaps unearned sense of closeness with this woman and something told her that Peggy felt the same way about her. It was a nice feeling, but the intimacy was also beginning to make Rose a little uncomfortable.

"So you fought in the war?" Rose asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yes, I did."

"In the WACs? Or the British version of that?"

"No actually. I was an agent in the same organization I'm part of now, the one Agent Sousa's part of as well."

"Were you on the frontlines?"

"Sometimes, yes."

"Wow."

"Sometimes I was behind enemy lines as well," Peggy said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her smile at Rose's reaction.

"Wow!" Rose said again. "How did—well, maybe I shouldn't ask that. But, how—never mind. Wow. Sorry. My imagination's running wild."

"No, please don't apologize. I'd forgotten what it feels like to actually have someone impressed by that for once."

"Are other people not impressed?"

"They don't seem to believe me. Not really. It's as if they can't wrap their heads around it." Peggy sighed. "And when I say 'they' I mean men. Agent Sousa—Daniel's—better, though, than the rest of them. How do you know Daniel, by the way?"

"We were neighbors growing up," Rose said. Then, realizing that this didn't even begin to encompass the nature of their relationship, she added, "But we became a lot more than that."

"So the two of you are…"

"Oh no, no, nothing like that. We're just very good friends."

The look of relief that flashed across Peggy's face—so quick you could miss it—caught Rose by surprise. She hardly knew this woman, but Peggy didn't strike her as the kind of person to be taken in by crushes. Still, Rose thought, if Peggy was going to have a crush on anyone, Daniel was an excellent choice. She felt a slight twinge in her abdomen at the thought, as if her stomach were contracting. She supposed she was still a bit overprotective of Daniel, the way a person naturally would be with someone they grew up with.

Peggy and Rose continued talking, moving on from their losses to discuss their jobs—Peggy couldn't say much about what she did now, but at the start of the war, she had been a codebreaker at Bletchley Circle—their opinions of New York, and even their feelings about apple pie—Peggy liked it, while Rose found it bland and considered the phrase, "as American as apple pie," to be a great injustice. They stayed at the café so long it was dark by the time they left.

"I'll walk you back to Daniel's," Peggy said and Rose felt like a woman being walked home from a date by her new beau. Before she could agree, however, she and Peggy ran straight into Daniel and three other men.

"Rose," Daniel said, looking concerned. Rose wondered what Peggy had told him. "I heard you got locked out."

"I'm so sorry, Daniel. I feel so stupid. I must have locked the key you gave me inside. I was just going back so I could let you in." This was not entirely true. Rose had actually forgotten the need to let Daniel back into his own apartment.

"Don't worry about it," Daniel said. "We were actually thinking of going out for a drink, if you'd be interested. If not, that's fine, though. We can just go back home."

"No, a drink sounds good."

Rose watched Daniel blush as he turned to Peggy. "Peggy, would you like to—"

One of the men with him interrupted before he had a chance to finish. "You might as well come along, Marge. We've already got one gal. Wouldn't want to leave her all alone with us men."

"Why Jack, what a generous invitation," Peggy said as Rose said, "Yes, that sounds almost intolerable."

The man raised his eyebrows and smirked. The retorts from Peggy and Rose had overlapped somewhat, but Rose was sure everyone had been able to hear them both. Daniel looked from Rose to Peggy, clearly tickled.

"Rose," he said. "This is Jack Thompson."

"Pleasure to meet you," Jack said, without extending his hand for a handshake. Rose merely nodded at him.

"And this is Ray Krzeminski and Simon Yauch."

In contrast to Jack, Ray Krzeminski held out his hand a little too eagerly, pulling Rose in closer to him during their handshake. Simon Yauch was the only one who reacted politely, shaking her hand with decorum. It did not escape Rose's notice that she was about to go out for drinks with two people whom Peggy had described as men who would leave women crying on the street.

"Right," Jack said. "Are we getting a drink or not?"

Krzeminski and Yauch trailed after Jack eagerly, quickly outpacing Daniel. Rose smiled as Peggy dropped back to walk with Daniel. She sensed there was something between these two and the idea made her mostly happy. Either way, Peggy clearly respected and liked Daniel well enough to take him into consideration in a way that his male coworkers did not. Rose wondered why Daniel even wanted to get drinks with these men, a question that only became harder to answer as the night wore on. Yauch was quiet enough, but Jack and Krzeminski were thoroughly unpleasant. At least Jack mixed some charm in with his chauvinism and bravura. Krzeminski was merely a pig. Worst of all was how they treated Daniel—and Peggy, although it didn't seem to get to her as much. They both repeatedly interrupted Daniel, talking over him whenever he attempted to include Peggy and Rose in the conversation, whom neither of them acknowledged at all. Rose kept expecting Daniel to tell Jack and Krzeminski off but he never did. Instead, whenever they interrupted him, he often looked down and away from them as if cowed. Rose wanted to say something about what was happening but couldn't think of what and also knew that Daniel would likely not appreciate her intervening on his behalf. Eventually, the group splintered into two, which made Rose considerably happier. At one point, she whispered to Daniel, "Why do you choose to go out with these guys?"

"I work with them."

"So? I work with a second grade bully who's been held back twice but I don't invite him to hang out after the school day's over."

"That's clearly not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

Rose glanced over to where Jack was holding court in front of a rapt audience of Krzeminski and Yauch. Jack was obviously taller than a second grader, even one who should have been in fourth grade, but other than that he fit the bill, belittling others—such as Daniel—in order to raise his own status. Meanwhile, Krzeminski was the muscle who intimidated kids into giving up their milk money—Krzeminski actually looked less strong than Jack, but he was clearly not the brains of the operation—and Yauch was the hanger-on who probably wasn't quite as firmly in the bully's good graces as he thought he was.

"Hey Sousa," Jack called over. "Get your girls together. I want to settle a discussion we're having."

"His girls?" Peggy repeated. "Is that a joke?"

"I knew that'd get your attention, Marge. Anyway, we were all wondering, what would make a pretty young lady such as yourself want to join the SSR in the first place, when you're surrounded by men all day?"

"That is a question I ask myself daily," Peggy said.

"And what about you, Rose?" Jack asked. "What do you do? Or do you do anything?"

"No," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "I just sit around and eat bon bons all day."

"All right." Jack shifted his attention back to Peggy. "So, anyway, why do you do it Peggy? I think it's a jealousy thing, a sort of Freudian pen—"

"Jack!" Daniel interjected.

"Clearly Sousa's too delicate to hear what I was about to say next, but we all know. I think you're envious, Marge, that you want to be like us."

"And I think," Krzeminski chimed in. "That it's your way to meet men. Not that it's worked out so well for you. We've got Howard Stark on the run now, before that it was Captain America dying in a—"

"Krzeminski!" Daniel and Jack both said at the same time. Apparently, even Jack had a line that he did not cross.

"That was uncalled for," Daniel said.

"What? I don't understand."

Jack grabbed Krzeminski by the collar of his shirt and shoved him toward the door. "Out," he said. "Get out." Then he turned to Peggy who was sitting there, staring at her hands. "I'm sorry. That went too far."

"No, Jack," Peggy said, looking up with a smile and watery eyes. "I'm perfectly all right. I think I'll hit the hay, though. Long day tomorrow."

"Peggy," Daniel said. "It's late. I can walk you home." He looked at Rose. "We both can."

"Thank you, Daniel, but I'm quite all right on my own. It was lovely to meet you, Rose."

"You too."

As Peggy left, Rose felt a lead weight drop into her stomach. She realized she probably knew Peggy less well than anyone else there did, but she and Peggy had just discussed losing people and she thought she might know more about how Peggy was feeling there than the rest of them. She hadn't realized the man Peggy had lost was Captain America, but the famous name didn't change much. A loss was a loss. Perhaps everyone else knew the significance of what had just happened too, though, as no one had spoken yet.

Finally, Daniel turned to Jack and said, "That was just as much your fault as Krzeminski's."

Daniel, Rose, and Peggy had been sitting down while Jack, Krzeminski, and Yauch—whom Rose often forgot was still there—hovered over them. Daniel had stood up when Krzeminski let out his Captain America remark and was now facing Jack somewhat threateningly. Rose noticed how much taller Jack was, or at least appeared to be—Daniel lost some height from having to lean so heavily to the left, resting his weight on his good leg.

"Sit down, Sousa, before you hurt yourself."

Daniel didn't sit down but he didn't say anything in retort and he did take a step back.

Rose agreed with Daniel, of course, but her rage was still mostly reserved for Krzeminski, who she figured could not have gotten too far.

"Hang on," she said, walking outside before anyone could ask her what she was going to do.

Just as she had suspected, she found Krzeminski still lurking around, smoking a cigarette while leaning against the wall. She was too angry to think of anything to say so she just glared at him.

"Is this some weird little flirting thing you do? 'Cause if it is, I have to say I'm into it."

Rose pulled her fist back and began to swing it toward Krzeminski's face, but stopped herself. The last time she had hit anyone, she was twelve and just about to enter seventh grade. After that, she had decided to put the kibosh on the whole thing. Enough years had passed since she last saw her father, she thought she could finally let that violence go. Now, though, it was hard to remember that decision. She let her fist drop to her side. Krzeminski, who had looked genuinely frightened began to laugh. Rose couldn't think of what to do next so she let out a noise of frustration, pushed Krzeminski hard against the wall, and then walked away.

Looking over her shoulder, she said, "You're a pig."

As she and Daniel began the walk back to Daniel's apartment a few minutes later, Daniel looked extremely guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was terrible."

"It ended terribly, yes."

"Krzeminski's a real jerk. I feel so bad for Peggy. And I'm sorry you had to be there for that."

"It's fine," Rose said. "And Peggy seems pretty tough. I'm sure she'll bounce back."

Daniel nodded. "So, what happened between you and her earlier today?"

"What do you mean what happened? We went out for pie."

Daniel looked at Rose quizzically. "Pie?"

"Yes."

"It's just that Peggy came into the office today and told me you were outside and a bit upset and she thought it might be best if she took you out for a little while. What was going on?"

Rose was touched that Peggy had felt the need to "take her out" after only knowing her for a few minutes. She pondered what to tell Daniel and eventually settled on the truth.

"It's my mother's birthday."

"Oh, Rose, I'm so sorry. I forgot."

"It's fine. I don't think you ever knew actually. She never made a big thing out of it. But, I forgot, until I started walking around the city and then, I don't know, it all hit me at once and I thought I was going to fall off the face of the earth or something. I don't know if that makes any sense."

"It does. The first milestones after a death are always hard."

"It wasn't even that, though. It was that I forgot."

"That's okay, though, Rose."

"It doesn't feel okay."

"That's okay too."

Rose laughed. "You sound like the Buddha or something."

"I'm not sure I know what the Buddha sounds like."

"I'm not sure I do either but I think it's very acceptance-based. Like, I'm not okay, you're not okay, but that's okay."

"Hmm," Daniel said, which was his favored response when he had nothing to say.

"Perhaps that's a reductive take," Rose said. "Actually, I'm sure it's a reductive take." She paused. "I think Peggy'll be okay too."

Daniel looked surprised to hear Rose talk about Peggy so familiarly.

"I mean, I guess I wouldn't really know, but she just seems resilient."

"Yeah, she is," Daniel said.

"I think she likes you."

Daniel had been watching the pavement closely, careful not to trip over anything in the dark but now he lifted his head up, clearly interested. "What makes you say that?"

"Just the way she talked about you, as compared to the other guys in your, uh, organization."

"Oh," Daniel said. "Well that's not saying much."

"Also, I think you like her."

"She'd never be interested in me," Daniel said, which was not a denial of Rose's premise.

"What? Why not?"

"You heard what just happened. She was with Captain America before me. What woman would want to go from someone like that to someone like me?"

Daniel's defeatist tone bothered Rose.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe Peggy."

"Oh come on, women like Peggy don't find men like me attractive."

It took Rose a moment to realize what Daniel was talking about. She had always found him attractive. Most of the girls back home had. But, of course, he was talking about his leg. It wasn't that Rose had forgotten about that—she thought about Daniel's injury quite frequently and could tell it was a huge "adjustment" for him, although she hated the clinical quality of that word—it was just that she had never thought it had anything to do with his attractiveness. People had obviously made comments about his ability to provide for a woman, but Rose had never considered him any less physically desirable due to his missing leg. Even though she hadn't said anything aloud, the idea of Daniel's physical desirability made her blush slightly.

"Why not?" she asked, then added before Daniel could say anything about his leg, "I think you're attractive."

"Thanks, Rose."

Daniel sounded unconvinced.

"What? Do you not trust my opinion on this? Am I not a red-blooded young woman?"

Rose had thrown caution to the wind and was leaning into this attractiveness argument whole-heartedly, trying to make Daniel smile at the very least, even if she couldn't completely convince him.

"Rose, that's disturbing."

"To you, maybe."

"It's just different with you," Daniel said.

"How so?"

"Well, it's a bit like when your mother calls you handsome, you know?"

"No it's not." At this point, Rose was genuinely offended. "Am I like a mother to you? Is that how you see me?"

"No, no, of course not. You're too young to be a mother."

"So what am I? A young nun?"

"No." Daniel sounded exasperated. "It's just you're like a sister to me so for you to say something like that is different."

"I'm not your sister, Daniel."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just saying you're _like_ a sister."

"Okay."

Rose was quiet for the reminder of the walk, feeling resentful about Daniel so easily discounting her opinion and not particularly appreciating his sister comment either, although she knew it was likely meant as some type of endearment. When they arrived at Daniel's apartment, however, Rose perked up, determined to use the limited amount of time they had left together. She was leaving tomorrow morning. It was almost midnight and both Rose and Daniel would need to wake up early the next morning, but neither one of them was particularly eager to go to sleep. Rose wasn't at least and she thought she saw the same in Daniel. She wouldn't have described the visit as a dud exactly, but she had not been able to see as much of Daniel as she had been hoping to—or expecting even.

After the fairly long walk, Rose noticed that Daniel was favoring his right leg more than usual. Instead of sitting down, though, he stood in his tiny kitchen, leaning heavily on the counter.

"You have any dinner?" he asked. "I just realized I haven't."

"Well, I ate a lot of pie." Rose and Peggy had each ordered a second slice.

When Daniel opened the fridge, Rose saw it was empty except for some leftover eggs from the morning's pancakes. Daniel was actually a fairly good cook, but it didn't seem like he ate many meals at home these days, or spent much time at home at all.

"Hmm," he said. "Our options are limited. Fried or scrambled?"

They ate their eggs quietly with Rose sitting cross-legged on the pull-out couch and Daniel sitting in the large chair, the table at an awkward height for both of them.

"Daniel," Rose began, tentatively. A thought had been nagging her all weekend but she wasn't sure how to broach the subject. "Are you happy here?"

"Um." Daniel put down his fork. "I mean, I'm doing the kind of work I always wanted to be doing. I'm very lucky."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Yeah, I know." Daniel shrugged and then looked away. His eyes seemed to be searching for something in the apartment to focus on. Finally, he settled on Rose and looked back at her, sighing. "I should be," he said.

"But you're not."

"I don't know what it is. I guess it's all just such a big… I really hate the word adjustment."

"Me too."

"But that's what it's been."

"Yeah."

"And I don't just mean with my leg and everything. It's also just been strange to be back home and working on something other than the war. And the work hasn't been exactly what I was expecting."

"And you work with a bunch of…" What was the word Peggy had used? "Wankers!"

"Wankers?" Daniel repeated. "I think you're the one with a crush on Peggy Carter."

Rose felt her cheeks growing warm and wondered why.

"Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. How's it been different from what you were expecting?"

"I'm supposed to be a field agent, but I spend all my time behind a desk. Sometimes I think the other guys don't trust me to be in the field with them. Actually, I always think that. I'm almost sure it's true."

"At least they called you in today," Rose said. "Peggy told me they didn't even call her."

"Really? Those jerks."

"Wankers."

Daniel laughed before growing serious again. "I guess I'll just have to prove myself to them. I really haven't been there for too long."

"And you will prove yourself," Rose said. She wanted to be encouraging but she also truly meant it. She had every faith in Daniel.

"What about you, though, Rose? Are you happy?"

Rose scoffed. "We both know I'm not so there's no sense in talking about it."

Over the years, Rose had become adept at talking about her sadness in an emotionless, intellectual sort of way. When she was a child, she'd just pretend it wasn't there, would lie to others and herself about what living with her father was really like, about how much it affected her. Then, as she grew older and some of that childhood sadness lingered, she began to admit it to people but only in the most detached way possible. Sometimes, she felt like a science experiment she was describing to someone else.

 _Have observed that Patient X is experiencing night terrors 1-3 times a week. Postulate cause is related to residual grief, financial stress, and emotional weakness. Stand by to see if weakness is pronounced enough to be statistically significant._

Apparently this wasn't going to work with Daniel, however. He was leaning forward in his chair and his eyes were frustratingly inquisitive and caring.

"I think there's sense in talking about it," he said.

Rose contemplated how much she wanted to tell Daniel and eventually decided to tell him all of it. Once she began, she was surprised by how easily "all of it" was encompassed in a few sentences. "It all just feels unreasonably difficult at the moment. And sometimes I wish I could just get away from it all. Not die exactly, but just stop living. Not forever, though. Just for a little while."

Rose expected Daniel to react poorly to this pronouncement, or be surprised at the very least, but all he did was nod.

"I can understand that," he said.

"I feel like I'm cracking up." Rose began to cry. "And everything is spinning out of control."

She closed her eyes, trying to regain some semblance of emotional control, to stop what she had just said from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. She heard movement and soon Daniel was sitting next to her, not touching her at all, just there. And then she broke down completely and felt Daniel wrap an arm around her shoulder. Regaining her composure many minutes later, she said, "I'm sorry. This is so embarrassing."

"I don't think so."

"Daniel, have you felt… the way I just described?"

"Yes."

"But not anymore?"

"Not anymore."

Rose felt like she should ask Daniel how he managed to stop feeling that way, like it was something she was _supposed to_ ask, but she didn't really want to. She and Daniel were different people and she wasn't exactly looking for advice. Daniel must have known this because he didn't offer any.

"I feel I should point out," he said. "That if you stop living that does have to be forever."

"You don't sound very Buddha-like anymore."

"What?"

"Buddhism, it's all about reincarnation."

"Oh, okay," Daniel said. Then, "Did you study everything in college?"

"Yes, but I'm a terrible dilettante, so a lot of it was superficial."

Daniel shook his head and smiled. "I love you, Rose, you know that?" He immediately looked uncomfortable. "You know, like a…"

"Like a man would love a young nun."

"Well no, but like we do. In a way that's specific to us."

"In a sister-brother, mother-son, young nun-old priest kind of way."

Daniel nearly did a spit take. "Everything you've just said makes me profoundly uncomfortable."

"Yes," Rose said. "I imagined it would. But I know what you mean. I love you too, Daniel."

Rose suddenly felt very sleepy. Confessing all she had just confessed had taken a lot out of her. She lay back on the bed, then tapped Daniel on the arm, signaling for him to do the same. He did, but held himself rigidly. Rose could tell he was not quite at ease. Perhaps this was not exactly the same as lying next to a nun.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You don't have to stay here."

"No," he said. "I can stay."

Rose reached out for Daniel's hand and held it loosely.

"Thanks for not worrying too much about me," she said. "About what I told you."

Daniel waited a long time before speaking. "I'm fairly worried. But there's nothing more to say. I don't think. Not for me anyway."

"Don't worry," Rose said.

"No promises."

Daniel squeezed Rose's hand and soon they were both asleep.

She woke up to the feeling of something jerking violently next to her. Opening her eyes, she saw that it was Daniel's right leg, the prosthesis still attached. During the night, Daniel had remained lying on his back, but Rose had curled up right beside him, making his movements very noticeable to her. Daniel was still asleep, but was muttering to himself, seemingly in pain.

"Daniel," Rose whispered. Then, more loudly, "Daniel. I think you're having a…" She trailed off. She wasn't sure what was happening. Was it a dream? She gently shook his shoulder, but he didn't react. He may have grown more agitated, actually, but he didn't wake up. "Daniel," she said again, sitting up and grabbing him by both shoulders this time, shaking much harder.

"I'm fine," he said quickly as he woke up. There was such urgency it sounded like part of a previous conversation, like a response to whoever he had been talking to in his sleep.

Daniel sat up and groaned as he looked at his leg. The shaking gradually diminished. Rose still wasn't sure exactly what she had seen, but she felt keeping the prosthesis on for so long must have something to do with it.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Why?"

"I made you stay here and I wasn't even thinking about you taking off your prosthetic and, I don't know, I just wasn't thinking."

"You didn't make me," Daniel said. "I wanted to. I just wasn't expecting to doze off. Oh god, what time is it?" He looked at his watch. "6:20. Rose, your bus."

Rose was out of bed throwing the few things she had brought into her suitcase before Daniel even finished talking. Within minutes, she was ready to go. She felt not so much dirty as stale, mostly from sleeping in her clothes but it also saved her time now that time was so short.

"You don't have to walk me there," she said.

"I can keep up."

"I know. I just meant you don't have to."

"Let's go," Daniel said, opening the door.

They both walk-ran and Daniel did keep up, although Rose couldn't ignore the look of pain on his face. She felt incredibly guilty. In their frenzy, they arrived at Union Station ten minutes early, panting and then, when they saw the time, laughing slightly.

"We made it," Daniel said. "You should probably get on the bus. Get yourself a seat."

Rose nodded. "Thanks for a great visit, Daniel."

"Was it great? I feel bad that I was gone so much yesterday."

Rose thought about this. No, it probably hadn't been great in a traditional sense.

"Well, it was special," she said. "It was important for me to come out here. I hope it wasn't too much of a burden."

"Are you kidding me? It was important for me too." Daniel pulled Rose into a hug, giving her a slight nudge toward the bus as he released her. "Hey, Rose," he said, stopping her in the doorway. "Don't hide from me, okay?"

Rose considered telling him that she hadn't been hiding from him, but knew this was a lie.

"I won't," she said, climbing onto the bus and taking a window seat so she could watch Daniel waving to her from the platform.


End file.
